Jason had strained his ankle a bit at the Champions League final ga which was just six days ago and he had initially had it checked at the stadium, but after a bit of first aid treatnt, he had forgotten about it completely.
Since he had woken up the day after the Champions League with barely any pain and they had gone for the city-wide parade that sa day, he hadn’t had his leg checked at the team’s dical departnt.
The day after that was his flight to Nigeria and at this point, there was no pain in his ankle, especially as he hadn’t done any intensive training, so by this point he had completely forgotten the injury.
Sohow, he hadn’t felt anything at the gym the day before yesterday, neither had he felt anything at the training session the previous day and earlier today, but after clipping his leg against the tackle on his first run, the sharp pain had instantly reminded him of his blunder.
Luckily, the injury wasn’t serious enough that he couldn’t play and he barely felt any pain unless there was a huge shock on that ankle, however, he knew that he couldn’t afford to play carelessly anymore.
If he made any risky runs that ended up with him getting tackled hardly, there might be terrible repercussions.
Thanks to that, he had to tone down his attempts at rushing down the flank by himself and try to bring his teammates into play, however there was a small issue with doing that.
Since he was mostly surrounded and could barely get enough ti to make long passes, short passes were his best bet, but the problem was that once the ball left his legs, the players following him would instantly change their focus on the player who received the ball.
Unfortunately, those players were not like him who could barely manage being surrounded and almost instantly lost the ball seconds after unless they managed to sohow pass it to soone else.
The strikers clearly did not have enough agility to do such a thing and while the midfielders had more agility, they didn’t have such a skill-set.
In the end it all led to Caroon managing to stay tight and keep them away from scoring. Even the manager making substitutes to bring in more energy and increase their fighting chances didn’t change much and it was already the 80th minute at this point.
With ten minutes to go, the players began playing with even more vigor as even though this was rely a friendly ga with nothing at stake other than pride, they still did not want to lose.
Their pride wouldn’t let them willingly take it lying down.
Even Jason had gone ’fu*k it’ and was back to trying to break through by himself from the left flank.
#86th minute...
On the left side of the field, Jason received the ball on the halfway line and instantly rolled it between the legs of the Caroon player who had co sweeping in and trying to tackle him before he built any montum.
Dodging the guy, Jason faced off against the other two guys who were in his path and began moving before he was surrounded.
As he moved forward, he did a few stepovers to buy himself ti since the opponents wouldn’t jump in when it seed like he was waiting for them to bite the bait.
Luckily, his teammates had noticed his predicant and Osin had quickly dropped back, allowing Jason to flick the ball between the legs of another player arriving on his right.
The ball rolled toward Osin who had dropped back to receive the ball while the other Nigerian players shielded him.
The attention of two of the players watching Jason turned to Osin imdiately, allowing Jason to dash forward, running down the outside of the throwing line like before. Osin imdiately picked Jason out and sent a pass in behind, managing to unleash Jason who had made it behind Caroon’s defense line.
Catching up to the ball, Jason began cutting in quickly, now facing off against the center backs who had fallen back quickly and were trying to block his path to goal.
Doing a few more stepovers, Jason suddenly charged to the left of the defenders, creating just enough space to send the ball across into the path of Ihenacho.
{Kelechi Ihenacho!} the comntator scread excitedly as Ihenacho put his leg into the ball’s path and tried to drive it ho, but the ball bounced awkwardly against the striker’s leg, flew forward and slamd against the right post and flew to the right of the post.
{Oh No! It’s the bar!}
*Fweeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!*
The fans and viewers thought the referee was blowing his whistle to signal that the ball had rolled out of play, but instead the referee was pointing to the penalty spot as he ran towards the penalty box.
After getting past the defenders and crossing the ball, Jason hadn’t completely escaped their sweeping legs and had been taken down inside the penalty box.
The referee had seen it and had blown his whistle imdiately, giving hope to the Nigerian fans who thought their players had botched another goal scoring chance.
Getting off the ground, a bit winded, Jason was thankful that the pain in his ankle didn’t seem to have increased after the tackle.
Testing his ankle to be sure, he rembered that he had jumped off the ground so the impact had been minimal, but he still had to check to be sure and luckily, there didn’t seem to be a problem.
On the other hand, Iwobi, Osin, and Ihenacho were arguing on who would take the penalty.
All three of them were among the penalty takers for the team, but in terms of seniority on the team, Ihenacho and Iwobi were the top, however, Iwobi and Osin thought Ihenacho was in bad form and didn’t want him butchering theh penalty.
Osin also thought that Iwobi was also not in the best of form either, but in the end, Iwobi won the argunt and took the ball to the spot.
{Nigeria’s chance to redeem themselves}
{After fighting to the best of their abilities, Caroon couldn’t hold on till the end and let Jason in behind and now they have to pay for their mistake}
{However, if the goalkeeper can sohow save this penalty, then they can hold on to their lead, but I doubt it, the fans doubt, and maybe even the goalkeeper doubts it, but if there is any ti to believe in the impossible, it is now!}
*Fweeeeeeeeee!*
Taking his eyes off the goalkeeper, Iwobi ran at the ball and hit it powerfully towards the top right corner of the goal.
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