Chapter 551: Storm I
On the green fields of the Allianz Arena, the players were arranged in a straight line and faced the crowd as the tune of the Champions League anthem rang loudly through the stadium.
Kickoff was a few minutes away, but before the ga began, there were a few pre-ga formalities left to be observed before the ga could begin.
After the anthem was sung, the Uventus players started shaking hands with the referees and the players of the Oporto team one after the other.
The cara was trained on the players as this happened, but for so reason, Jason felt like there were a few more caras pointed his way than usual.
He soon found out that it wasn’t just a feeling and there really were a few more caras pointed his way as he shook hands with the referees and the Oporto players.
It did not take him long to realize the likely reason for this.
The caran were probably expecting to capture an interesting scene between him and Jason, but they were bound to be disappointed as Jason stretched out his hand to Mylo when he reached him, and Mylo took it, shaking hands for a second, and Jason moved on.
Jason could almost hear the disappointed sighs from the caran from where he was on the field, but he didn’t care.
Shaking hands on the field was customary and was supposed to depict sportsmanship, so Jason had no problem shaking hands with Mylo.
That did not an he had forgiven him or had begun to like him or anything of that sort, but rather that Jason no longer felt the need to get violent or expressive whenever he was around Mylo.
That was progress for sure, but that also did not an he had forgiven Mylo.
Whatever it ant didn’t change the promise Jason had made to Mylo before he left Porto for Turin.
He was going to make his life hell whenever he felt like it, and right now, he was feeling a lot like it.
Jumping around on the spot and stretching his muscles while waiting for the captains of the two teams to be done, Jason waited for the match to begin while trying to think of how he would play against his forr teammates.
While he waited, his mind flew back to monts earlier in the team locker room where they had discussed and finalized the tactics for the ga.
“Like you’ve already been inford, Buffon is the goalkeeper for today, Chiellini and De Ligt will be the two center-backs for today, while Danilo and Alex Sandro will be the right and left wingbacks, respectively,” the Juventus manager had begun, reminding the players of the team’s starting line-up.
“Bentacur and Mckennie will be in the center parts of midfield, controlling the middle and being fluid enough to help the team on the attack or in defense,”
“Jason and Kulusevski will be on the left and right flanks of the midfield, doing their part to help the team in keeping possession as well as moving the ball down the flanks whenever we’re on the attack,”
“Ronaldo and Chiesa are the two forwards looking to be on the end of the ball in this match.”
After listing out the starting line-up once again to the players, he then proceeded to give everyone their roles for the match and assigning the tasks, and when he finally reached Jason,
“Jason, for this match, you’ll be given a free role, and you have my permission to run to move to any section of the pitch you think will be the most effective area for you to disturb the opponents. ” The manager’s words caused a wave of surprise around the room as this was a new addition to their previously arranged tactic.
“In this match, you’ll be one of the main targets of the opponent’s defensive tactics, and the opponent probably have a plan to lock you down on the flanks, I want us to use that against them,”
“If they’re focusing on you, that is good as it will allow more freedom for the others, but what if you are constantly changing positions, making them unable to follow their defensive tactic and leaving them unable to do anything but adjust to the situation?” the manager’s words caused the Uventus players eyes to brighten up and smiles imdiately appeared on their face as they understood where the manager was going.
If Jason was supposed to be double marked on the left flank and kept from receiving the ball or making a run inside, but he moved to the center or the right flank instead, then would his marker follow him all the way to the right side of the pitch or the center all while leaving their own positions.
One must note that each player would chosen to mark another player and the choice was made depending on each player’s attributes so once there was a mismatch between the players, then there was bound to be a problem.
This tactic would force that mismatch, which would lead to many problems for Oporto.
“If you move to the center of the park, Mckennie will move to the left flank instead, and if you move to the right flank, Mckennie will still move to the left flank, and Kulusevski would go to the center of the midfield to join Bentacur,”
“If you choose to go forward to join the strikers, either Ronaldo or Chiesa will step back and move to whichever flank is free,”
“I want you all to adjust accordingly to Jason’s movents,” Pirlo emphasized to his players, and they nodded affirmatively, impressed by the ga plan.
As impressive as the ga plan was, it was also dependent on the versatility of the players that Pirlo had selected in the starting line-up.
If not for the versatility of the players he had put in the starting line-up, then this tactic would only have one end.
Spectacular failiure.
However, thanks to the versatility of the players who could play two or more positions on the field, there was a fairly good chance of this surprising tactic catching the opposition off guard.
However, whether the tactic worked or not remained to be seen.
***
With him being the focal point of today’s ga plan, Jason was feeling a bit more pressure than usual because the ga plan’s success depended on him more than the other players.
If he changed positions and ended up not doing anything substantial with the ball, then that would be nothing more than just rearranging the team’s line-up and tbat would only cause confusion and could even have so more adverse effects.
While he was thinking, Jason didn’t just stand around, but was doing so warm-up exercises as he waited for the ball to begin moving.
Luckily, he didn’t have to wait for long, and the referee’s whistle, which had been placed in his mouth a little while ago, blew loudly.
*Fweeeeeeeeee!*
{Kick off!}
{Here at the Allianz Arena, the whistle has gone off and the second leg of the round of sixteen between Uventus and Oporto has begun!}
{Uventus ended the previous ga with a domineering 5 : 2 win away from ho at the Estadio do Dragao in Porto}
{Oporto have a daunting task ahead of them if they want to sohow make it back from such an unfavorable position and get sothing from this ga and against an opposition like Uventus who have the quality to repeat last match’s events in this match, it could be said to be almost impossible}
{However, we have seen such impossible feats co to life before and the Oporto fans will be hoping that their team has it in them to pull off such an upset, however, we can only wait and see what the ga brings!} the comntator addressed the crowd and the viewers as the ga began.
The ga had already settled into an eased pace with both teams passing the ball around whenever they were in possession while looking for space to play the ball into, but the defense of the two teams were doing their jobs well enough for the ga to maintain a deadlocked situation.
Despite being given the permission of the manager to roam around the field if he wished, Jason didn’t rush into straying from his position.
For every new tactic one chose to use against an opponent, the most effective ti of such a tactic is when it was first deployed. At that ti, the opponent had never seen it before and would be surprised.
Thus the tactic would have the stunning effect which could buy valuable ti for his team so Jason was being careful enough not to expose his team’s ga plan to the opponent, but it was beginning to look like things couldn’t stay that way for long.
This was because of the way the Oporto team was playing.
Oporto needed at least a four goal lead over Uventus to turn their situation around, yet despite this, they had chosen to go on the defensive to stop the Uventus team from scoring first and creating montum for themselves.
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