章節 11: A Wasteful Striker and a Turn of Events

*FWEEEEE*

The new striker, Orland who was standing over the ball kicked off by passing the ball back to Rico who then passed the ball to the right wing where Jason was.

Jason saw the left winger rushing towards him and waited patiently before slotting the ball coolly through his legs when he was close enough, before stepping past him to recover the ball and kicking it deftly to the left side of the field where Nico who had made a run into the open space was.

Nico quickly trapped the ball with his left leg before feeding it forward with his right leg past the midfielder who had come to block him, freeing himself from his man and making a run into the central parts of the field as that was where he had seen space, but before long, he saw the center backs of team B closing in on him.

He didn't want to pass back to Orland as he was sure that he would be blocked by the center midfielders, but when he was thinking that he would have to try dribbling past the defenders, he saw Jason running into the open right wing towards the edge of the opponent's penalty box and he quickly sent the ball high and across into his path.

Jason who was making the run saw the ball coming his way as well as one of the three center backs who was close by, but he kept running after the ball while taking note of the defender who was coming from behind.

As soon as the ball came into range, he didn't try to trap the ball, but waited until the ball was almost on the floor before using a Ronaldo-style back chop to send the ball about a meter behind him, surprising and sending the defender flying forward and freeing himself from the defender for a few seconds

…or at least till he got back up.

With the defender out of the way, Jason cut into the box and sent a pass at the approaching Orland who was free enough to take a shot at goal.

Orland put power behind his right foot and swung heavily at the ball aiming for a corner of the ball, but he somehow mis-kicked and sent the ball flying over and away from the goal stunning everybody from both teams as well as everyone in the stands.

"What a terrible end to a very good attack," Rafael murmured in the stands, and everyone around him who could hear his voice agreed with him with some of the more biased scouts instantly crossing out Orland's name from the list of players to approach.

On the field, Orland, with his hands clasped together looked apologetically at Jason who was finding it hard to keep an annoyed expression from showing up on his face.

He just shook his head, turned back, and jogged back out of the penalty box while grumbling inwardly to himself,

'There goes my assist stat.'

He had revealed himself for nothing and would now be watched especially by the opposing team.

Not that it meant much coming for players at their level, but it was still going to be annoying having to deal with more aggressive defensive tactics than normal.

"Well, no matter," he sighed as he watched the goalkeeper fetch the ball for a goal kick.

The goalkeeper took the goal kick and sent the ball over everyone's heads into the midfield, prompting a challenge for the ball between both team's players.

Team B was the one that ended up with the ball after and they kept the ball among themselves with well-placed passes.

From then on it was a back-and-forth between both teams until the seventh minute of the second half when Jason received a pass from Daniel and he immediately took off down the wings, shaking off his man and creating the space for an attack.

His teammates didn't need to think much and quickly went after him to support him, quickly freeing themselves up to be able to receive a pass, but Jason wasn't paying attention to them and was now facing off the same defender who had been after him in the previous attack.

Seeing the look on the defender's face that said that he wouldn't hesitate to go after his legs if he tried any fancy moves, Jason simply fed the ball past him as if he were making a pass and circled around the player with his high acceleration and getting behind the player to receive his own pass.

Upon receiving his own pass, he charged down the now-open right wing, but the defender that he had just passed wasn't giving up on retrieving the ball and quickly gave chase while making sure he stayed on Jason's left so that he could block any attempt of Jason cutting in-field with the ball.

Jason didn't pay any attention to him until he got to the edge of the penalty box where his body suddenly twisted as if he was going to do another back chop.

The defender seeing his motions and not wanting to fall prey twice to the same trick, quickly did his best to come to a stop and while he was almost sent stumbling, he managed to control himself to the point where he was still within tackleable range of Jason.

But instead of Jason doing the back chop that he was expecting, all Jason ended up doing was using his right heel to slow down the ball before doing a body feint and charging back down the right wing and into the right side of the box.

The defender wasn't able to keep up with Jason's tricky movement and was sent to the floor again by Jason who didn't even bother watching him stumble and was already in the box before he sent a grounded ball across the wing, intending for the ball to go across to Nico.

Nico saw the incoming ball and approached the ball while already correcting his body position so he could hit it first time, but just before he could reach the ball Orland rushed past him and hurled himself at the ball in a sliding kick, sending it past the goalkeeper and towards the goal.

*CLANG!*

Unfortunately, the ball hit the bottom left goal post before rolling out of play surprising everyone and sending out groans of annoyance from his teammates, but there was no one on the team on the team more infuriated on the team than Jason who had had his almost surefire assist wasted again by someone he didn't even intend the ball for.

A disgusted look appeared in his eyes, and he didn't even pay attention to Orland's attempts at looking apologetic as he just jogged out of the box for the goal kick.

This time the goalkeeper took the goal kick by passing directly to one of the defenders from his team and that player quickly sent the ball forward trying to begin an attack.

Team B had already been shaken by the two attacks that almost ended up as goals if not for the striker who didn't seem to have his shooting boots at the moment, so they attacked with higher intensity and a renewed vigor, hoping to penetrate and get an equalizing goal before team C could score first and their efforts paid forth in the twelfth minute.

Team B was on an attack from the right wing and was slowly building up with precise passes until the right back of team C committed to a tackle and ended up leaving open space behind him which was quickly taken advantage of, and an inside pass was made into the open space which was met by a first-time cross from the left winger of team B into the penalty box of team C.

The striker of team A as well as Terrence, the CB from team C both jumped for the ball, but the striker luckily ended up reaching the ball first and headed the ball towards the upper corner of the goal.

Even though Aaron managed to dive for the ball and even touched it with the tip of his fingers, the ball still ended up at the back of the net.

GOALLLL!!!

2 : 2

Team B had equalized despite being two goals down previously and their attitude after Team C kicked off was very attack-intensive as they were currently the ones with the momentum and most of the team members of team C had lost their composure.

Before long disaster struck again for team C just three minutes later when Terrence brought down a player from team B down in the penalty box with the whistle going off for a penalty.