Greatest Of All Legends

Chapter 86: Porto vs Portimonense I

Preparing for the COVID lockdown was currently a major agenda in Jason’s mind, but it still came second to other more important things in his mind, one of which was the upcoming match so he put away his errant thoughts and decided to focus on the match.

He could get back to his internal debate after the match.

Thus Jason quickly hurried his steps to the locker room and changed into his match gear and jersey, before putting on a training vest over his jersey and putting on a bib over the vest.

He headed out to the field immediately after for the warm-up drills along with the rest of the team before heading back into the locker room after about thirty minutes for the tactical meeting.

They had already been informed of the starting line-up for the match when they were still doing some pre-match training back at the CTFD Portogaia training complex earlier which comprised of;

Augustin Marchesin (GK)

Pepe, Chancel Mbemba (CBs)

Alex Telles (LB), Sergio Olivera (RB)

Luiz Diaz (LM), Otavio (RM)

Tiquiniho Soares, Vincent Aboubakar (STs)

As expected, Jason wasn’t in the starting line-up, but there was a high chance that he would be substituted on later on in the match as the coach would probably think that he was on form after his performance in the last hope.

Jason was counting on that and hoped the manager looked his way during the match.

After the tactical meeting, the players marched out of the locker room, those in the starting line-up heading to the tunnel to await their cue while the bench players, the other club staff and the manager went to the team’s space on the sidelines.

At 8:30 the referee blew the whistle to start the match and the match between FC Porto and Portimonense kicked off.

Jason watched the match from the sidelines with wishful eyes, wondering when he could also be part of the starting line-up.

The match between Porto and Portimonense got off to a quick start when Portimonense somehow got through the Porto defense and scored first.

It happened when Chancel Mbemba stepped out of his defensive line to try to intercept a pass but somehow missed leaving a hole in the defense and a Portimnense midfielder capitalized on his mistake and chipped the ball over Chancel Mbemba and sent a lobbed pass to the Portimonense striker who controlled the ball with his chest before letting into his path.

From there he sent a blitzing shot at the goal that Augustin Marchesin was no match for and gave his team the lead.

Sergio Coneicao was stunned, the players were stunned, the fans were stunned, but the Portimonense players didn’t care and went off to the sidelines to celebrate.

Despite his team going behind, Sergio Conceicao didn’t do much more than shouting at his players to refrain from repeating such a mistake.

He sustained the belief that his team could still get something for the game and it was also quite early in the game so there was no need for him to lose his composure over something so little.

As soon as the match kicked off again, the Porto team quickly took control of the game, dictating the game’s pace and giving the Portimonense team no chance to build anything off the momentum of their goal.

They didn’t just stop there, they also pressed hard and took the game to the Portimonense team, pushing them back into their half until all the Portimonense team could do was defend.

Their attacking endeavour finally paid off in the 35th minute.

The Portimonense team had stolen possession of the ball and tried to stage a counter attack but before the could go far, they lost the ball. The Porto team quickly took advantage of the space opened up by the Portimonense when they tried to launch the counter and Otavio sent a ball to Tiquiniho Soares.

Tiquiniho Soares received the ball a few yards away from the penalty area, pushed past his marker and then sent the ball into the path of Vincent Aboubakar.

Vincent Aboubakar ran after the ball while holding off his marker until he received the pass and charged into the Portimonense penalty area and sent the ball past the goalkeeper to give his team the equalizer.

With both teams level, they both tried to get a goal to get themselves into the lead, but until the whistle that signaled the end of the first half, the goal just wouldn’t come and they walked off the field for a much needed fifteen-minute break.

In the locker room, Sergio Conceicao did his job as a manager and instructed the players on how to take advantages of the weaknesses in the opponents formation.

He gave each player specific instructions that should help them play better.

He also did not forget to commend the players who had been doing well out on the pitch, while also admonishing the ones whose performances still left a bit to be desired.

By the time the fifteen minutes was over, he sent them back to the pitch, not having made any changes to the line-up yet.

The second half resumed shortly after and before long it became obvious that Sergio Conceicao was the better manager between him and the Portimonense manager.

A few minutes after the second half resumed, the Porto team had pushed the Portimonense team so far back that they were barely managing to just hold the Porto team just outside their penalty area, but they couldn’t keep it up for long as in the 50th minute of the game which was just five minutes after the second half started, the Porto team found the back of the net with a beautiful headed goal.

Otavio had spotted Vincent Aboubakar making a run inside the Portimonense penalty area and had sent the a cross in his direction.

Vincent Aboubakar had jumped above everyone else in Portimonense penalty area to catch the header and had sent it past the keeper’s gloves, putting his team in the lead, sending the whole stadium into a frenzy.