Chapter 549: A Storm is Coming I
**9th March 2021**
It was the day that the Uventus and Oporto fans had been waiting for. The second leg of the Champions League round of 16 between the two clubs was today.
For the Uventus team that were already three goals ahead, their fans wished to see them run riot over the Oporto team who would be visiting the Allianz Arena.
While for the Oporto fans, they held the hope of a surprising coback against the Uventus team despite the situation not looking the slightest bit favourable towards them.
That was the beauty of the ga though.
The most impossible-looking scenarios had been turned around before, and the Oporto fans hadn’t lost all hope yet.
Belief in their team’s chances was a basic requirent as a fan, and all the Oporto fans chose to have so hope before the ga.
A few pessimistic ones found it hard to have hope for their team, but the least they could do was believe until things turned awry, and that was exactly what they chose to do.
Even the news about the fiasco between Jason and the club did nothing to chase.
The news about Jason’s fiasco with the club surprised many fans, but they weren’t that shocked.
Most of them already knew that sothing had probably happened between Jason and the club, so while they were slightly shaken by the news, the upcoming Champions League ga quickly took their minds off the matter.
They could be angry later, for now, the Champions League ca first.
The Oporto team had arrived at Turin early that morning and they had enjoyed a few scenes of the city and so of the food before being taken to rest.
Later in the day, as ga ti approached, they left their hotel and headed to the Allianz stadium.
On reaching the stadium, the players headed to their locker room while the Oporto manager and the team captain headed to a conference room at the club for a press conference before the ga.
The two clubs would be taking turns to have a press conference and as the visitors, the Oporto team had been given the first turn.
In reality, this was mostly because the Uventus team were taking their sweet ti hadn’t even arrived at the stadium yet.
They were too busy trying out the suits they would wear to arrive at the stadium as well as doing a last minute tactical eting at the Continassa.
Without wasting ti, the Oporto manager and Pepe quickly took their seats on the podium, and the press conference started.
The first few questions aid at the team captain and the manager were questions they could easily answer, concerning things like the likely line-up for the team, their moods before the ga, how Italy was treating them and all that.
The press conference couldn’t stay unheated for too long and a question that changed the vibe of the whole press conference was soon directed at the manager.
“Coming into this match with a three-goal deficit, especially with them being away goals, what do you hope to gain from this ga, and do you believe that you can achieve your goals in this match?” a reporter calmly asked Conceicao.
“Well, in the Champions League, we have seen dreams beco reality many tis as well as dreams staying dreams, and tonight we have hope of putting up a fight,”
“Who knows if we could make our dreams a reality?” Conceicao replied ambiguously, and Pepe nodded on the side.
He hadn’t given up on the ga either, even with the odds that lood above them, threatening to co crashing down and squishing them into mush.
“You are up against Uventus, a team that is definitely of high quality, and that will only make your target that much more difficult to achieve. Do you have any plan or tactic that you think will work against them?” another reporter asked the manager.
“Truly, we can’t deny Uventus’ quality, especially in gas like these. We underestimated them in the last match and paid dearly for it, but…”
“We definitely have a plan and have been working hard to correct our mistakes. We’ll put our all out on the field, and hopefully, the results will favor us,” Conceicao replied to the reporter.
“How do you plan to deal with players who have a penchant for individual brilliance? Uventus is filled with such players as Ronaldo, Cheiesa, Dybala, Kulusevski, and even Jason, who is on loan to Uventus from your own club?” another reporter imdiately asked the manager before he even had a chance to take a breath.
“As I ntioned, Uventus has a lot of quality in their ranks, but so do we… Pepe here is quality enough, and I can trust him to lead the back line,”
“For players like those ones you’ve ntioned, we will do our best to hamper their stride and not let them settle into the ga. That’s the best way, but it’ll depend on our efforts, and I know my players have it in them to keep the opponents in check,” Conceicao replied, lying through his teeth.
He truly did believe that his players were quality enough to stop any one of those players if they ca at them… but that was only if they ca one by one.
Stopping that many quality players was easier said than done.
There was a reason why attacking trios like ssi, Suarez, and Neymar, or Bale, Benzema, and Christiano were very famous for being unstoppable in the past.
When quality players that complinted each other ca together to go against an opposition’s defence, stopping them beca a task as difficult as stopping water leaking from a weave basket… almost impossible.
One only had to look at the goals created by any of those two famous trios to know what he ant.
Of course, Uventus’ frontline didn’t have that kind of synergy or quality yet, but with Ronaldo, Jason and whoever else they would be going against, the danger levels were just as high.
Ronaldo couldn’t dribble as much as before, but his finishing skills were more dangerous than ever and with soone like Jason making all the right runs and the right passes to put the ball in all the right areas for Ronaldo or whoever was available, Conceicao already knew that his team’s hardest job on the pitch would be to prevent Uventus from scoring.
Unfortunately, they had to do a lot more than that to have a chance at sohow overturning the tide and making it to the next stage of the Champions League.
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