Chapter 521: A Tough Game in Verona II
The second half of the game began at the referee’s signal, and the ball once again began moving swiftly across the pitch.
After recharging, motivating, and inspiring themselves during the break, the players were ready to once again challenge each other to determine who was superior in the remaining forty-five minutes of the game.
Jason was still on the bench and watched the game resume. The manager hadn’t yet deemed it needed for him to be on the pitch, so he had no choice but to wait patiently while hoping that his teammates could quickly break the deadlock.
Luckily, the changes caused by the manager’s tactical changes at halftime did not take long to show.
The Uventus players quickly made it clear that they hadn’t merely been resting during the break.
They had quickly begun oppressing their opponents right after they got back on the field.
The Uventus players, however, knew that they couldn’t keep this up for long and needed to make this momentum count quickly.
Luck was on their side as they soon found space on the right and made a pass to Morata in the right side of the penalty box.
Morata immediately turned at the goal and tried to take a shot, but he could instantly judge that there were too many players between him and the goal.
Faking a shot instead of taking the shot, he managed to get the player react and create space, but there was still not enough space and he opted to pass to Ronaldo who was closer to the face of goal instead.
Ronaldo received the ball with a deft first touch, then flicked it past to the weaker side of an approaching defender with his second touch, creating enough space to take a shot.
With no one left between him and the goal, Ronaldo didn’t hesitate to drive it home into the bottom right corner of the goal.
{Of course, it goes in!}
{We had to wait through the first forty-five minutes, but the second forty-five had gotten off to a resounding start!}
{Uventus take the lead, and who else but him is behind it!} the commentator shouted as Ronaldo ran off to celebrate, accompanied by the other Uventus players who were happy that the game had changed.
On the sidelines, Pirlo signaled to Jason to come over while they were celebrating the goal.
“Start warming up. You’ll be coming on soon,” the manager whispered to Jason, who nodded affirmatively.
Pirlo knew that now that they had scored, they had the momentum, and they needed to take advantage of that momentum to draw further forward and kill any signs of upheaval from their opponents, who had made it clear that they wouldn’t give up this match easily.
Jason should be able to help with that if he was let loose on the opponents, giving them more pressure to cope with.
While the manager was considering other tactical changes, Jason began warming up, and his movements were visible to the other camp.
The Verona manager immediately understood what Pirlo was thinking of doing, but he couldn’t do anything at this moment but to have faith in his players.
They had already devised different tactical responses to whatever Uventus might throw at them during the break.
All the manager could hope for was that his players remembered what they had spoken about.
The celebrations were soon over, and the game once again resumed.
Jason was still warming up on the sidelines, waiting for the manager to call him on.
Luckily, he didn’t have to wait too long, as by the 60th minute, the manager called for a substitution.
Jason and Dybala were subbed on for Mckennie and Morata, respectively. Jason took his position on the left side of the midfield, while Dybala was upfront with Ronaldo.
The few Uventus fans at the stadium increased their cheers as they watched the two players run across the field, their hopes for the scoreline to increase shooting upwards.
Jason and Dybala quickly took their places on the field, and the match, which had paused due to a deadball, quickly resumed with a throwing from Kulusevski.
After coming onto the pitch, Jason had already had a couple of touches on the ball while the team was in possession, but no attacking attempts had been made from the left yet.
However, that did not take long to change as the ball soon found Jason on the left flank and he immediately took off down the left flank.
The Hellas Verona players immediately recognized the threat and arranged themselves as their manager had told them to.
Jason, who didn’t know the Verona players’ plan, kept moving down the flank, but he soon realized that something was wrong.
Two players had arranged themselves in annoying positions, with one by his right side and one further forward, but also on his right side.
This made it impossible for him to cut in towards the center from the flank. Annoyingly enough, there was a third defender on his right, but this guy was behind him, and he stayed much closer to him than the other two, making even a cut-back impossible.
With this set-up, the only way out was the space they had left in front of him that led further down the flank. But he knew that it was a trap because as long as they maintained their current shape, he would either end up running out of play or would have to face them directly in the end, which would most probably result in him losing the ball.
Another annoying thing was that if he waited until he was too near the box to take them on, he would be almost out of space because the further forward he moved down the flank, the lesser the space he had to maneuver himself.