Chapter 493: A Player With A Grudge!
With a loud blast of the whistle, the first leg of the round of 16 match-up between Uventus and Oporto began.
It was the Oporto team that kicked off the game and they immediately started passing the ball smoothly ans swiftly among themselves, making it clear that they were playing the long game.
A possession game style to soak up pressure and a quick counter to burst forward whenever space opened up was Oporto’s normal style of football and Jason knew that so he positioned himself appropriately and so did a few of the Uventus players.
Jason hadn’t directly spread information about the Oporto playing style, but he had given a few pointers on who to mark tighter and people who would pull the strings.
That much couldn’t be called divulging team secrets, and even if it was called that, Jason wouldn’t care as if he the information he divulged could make a big difference on the pitch after one month of leaving the team, then Oporto deserved whatever was coming to it.
It would be their fault for not changing their playing style when they knew they had someone on the opposition team who knew their strengths, weaknesses, and playing style.
For a while, the Porto side was forced to play from behind, but many times, the Uventus team would steal possession and launch attacks, almost converting a few times.
The Uventus team had managed to steal possession when Mckennie intercepted a pass from Luis Diaz.
On receiving the ball, he looked for an open teammate and as luck would have it, Jason was making a run forward.
Mckennie immediately sent the ball his way, curling the ball into his path.
Jason burst forward, reaching the ball about a meter away from Wilson Manafa. With a flick on the ball, Jason kicked the ball past the Oporto right back and tried to run past him.
Manafa reacted immediately and tried to hold Jason off, hoping to slow him down enough for an Oporto player to reach the ball first, but Jason squirmed as hard as he could and shook off Manafa’s challenge, managing to get past him and chase after the ball.
{He’s gotten past his marker!}
Just as Jason was about to reach the ball, he sensed a tackle coming from his right and with a smooth motion, kicked the ball forward a bit more before jumping over the tackle.
Less than a second later, Oliveira came sliding in, but there was nothing in his path, and Jason landed in front, continuing his chase after the ball managing to reach it just before it rolled out of play.
{Clever evasion of the tackle there! He’s still going!}
With no one beside him, he chose to run into the penalty box, looking for space to either shoot or pass to a teammate, but the remaining Oporto players had chosen to block out all other Uventus players, giving Jason no choice but to go for goal.
However, Manafa and Oliveira weren’t going to make it easy for him to get into a good shooting position, so Jason moved as further away from the line before taking a shot.
{He shoots! Oh, what a save!}
Augustin Marchesin punched the ball away, giving Uventus a corner kick while Jason put his hands on his head in agony at missing the chance to score first.
{Exciting scenes here at the Estadio do Dragao! A single-handed effort that almost put Uventus forward}
{If more performances keep surfacing, then it wouldn’t be long before the deadlock is broken!}
The commentator kept talking while the players arranged themselves in Oporto’s penalty box for the corner kick.
The ball was sent into the penalty box at the sound of the refereee’s whistle but the Oporto team defended well and sent the ball out of the box and the game continued.
Uventus was once again on the attack, having stolen the ball in the Oporto team’s half and the ball had made it’s way to the right side of Oporto’s penalty box.
Kulusevski took the opportunity to send a cross into the penalty box. The ball came flying in and Ronaldo jumped up to meet it, but it was at a weird angle to head it at goal so he chose to head it towards the left where Jason could reach it.
Seeing Ronaldo’s actions, he ran at the ball, but he wasn’t the only one chasing after the ball. His former captain was also running at the ball, and prior knowledge about this man let Jason know that if he didn’t get rid of the ball as quickly as possible, Pepe would get rid of him.
With that urgency, Jason met the ball with a swinging foot before it could reach the floor, unleashing the ball at the Oporto goal with as much power as he could muster.
Pepe jumped and turned his body, aiming to block the ball, but the ball rocketed past his position before he could block it and curved unnaturally at the top right corner of the goal, however instead of smashing into the back of the net like the Uventus side hoped, the ball smashed against the top right corner of the crossbar and flew out of play.
{How was that supposed to go in, and how did it not!?}
{That’s a question on everyone’s mind for sure!}
{It was a well-worked attack, perfectly set up, but luck just didn’t fall on their side}
{Uventus have been knocking and it’s looking like it won’t be long before they get their answer}
{Surely now, Oporto might already be regretting loaning out this young lad to their opponents}
{With how he’s playing, one would think he has a grudge against his home team} the commentator said, not aware of how close he was to the truth.
The Oporto fans in the stands were inches close to pulling out their hair as they watched Jason come close to putting their team behind the second time in the game. Under their breaths, the fans were already cussing out their club’s management as it was looking like the player they had loaned out had come back with a mission to single-handedly wreck their Champions League dreams.