八字万年历

Chapter 177: Road to Liga NOS Champions 2019/20 IV

A halt was placed on the joyous mood of the Porto team by the shrill sound of the referee’s whistle and Jason’s eyes fell on the assistant referee who held up the offside flag.

{It seems there’s an offside call from the assistant referee here}

{It looked to have been on, but the assistant referee thinks there is a possible offside. What’s the referee going to do here}

‘What the hell?’ Those were the first words that popped up in Jason’s head as he saw the offside flag.

It was impossible for him to be offside and that much was clear to him, because there had been a Desportivo das Aves player just in front of him when they were on the counter and Jason had made sure not to run past him until Jesus Corona released the ball, so what the hell was the assistant referee seeing that he called for a possible offside.

His teammates did not know of his thoughts and were already crowding the referee so Jason slowly approached the referee as well, but the referee simply waved off the Porto players and listened to the voice from the earpiece in his ear.

After a few seconds, the “1” on the scoreboard that belonged to Porto reverted to “0” which stunned the players as well as everyone else especially when the referee hadn’t even bothered checking with the VAR.

At this point, Jason couldn’t stay silent as he did not like where this was going.

Naturally, Jason was someone who didn’t like being on the short end of the stick, but throughout his previous life and even part of this life, he had been silent most of the time because he had judged it to be useless to bother speaking up as it could lead to annoying situations.

That was why even after he had been placed on the bench for almost a month after signing a contract, he didn’t say anything to the manager, or anyone for that matter.

He knew that speaking carelessly in that situation could get the manager to antagonize him, or his teammates could have a bad impression of him, but this case was different and he couldn’t stay silent.

He had scored a goal that could help his team gain ground, and he was a hundred percent sure that it wasn’t offside, but this referee seemed intent on making sure that their team was beaten by Desportivo das Aves.

He had already not called for a penalty when a clear foul in the Desportivo das Aves box had happened earlier, and now he wanted to disallow a goal without even checking the replay or even consulting the VAR.

What sort of professionalism is this?

“Ref, ref, just check the VAR, you can’t just disallow the goal without checking to see if I was actually offside or not,” Jason began trying to reason with the referee, but then the referee’s face scrunched up in irritation and he did something that surprised everyone.

The referee pulled out a yellow card and booked Jason, holding the yellow card in the air and leaving Jason utterly flabbergasted.

“This fu**in… what did I even do?” Jason could not help calling out but Telles quickly held him back and started pushing him away, trying to prevent the situation from escalating any further.

They could not afford to go a man down at this point so they could only hold off from speaking up at this point no matter how unreasonable the referee acted at this point.

Jason didn’t even care at this point and was almost ready to punch the referee in his face.

“What the hell is wrong with that guy? What is he giving me a yellow card for when he was looking around like a dimwit when I was fouled in the penalty box earlier?” Jason raged, but his voice wasn’t loud and could only be heard by Telles.

“Alright, I understand, calm down, calm down,” Telles immediately began trying to pacify Jason even though he was feeling pretty much the same way Jason was feeling.

He also wanted to sock the annoying referee, but that wouldn’t help the matter so he could only hope that the other players could reason with the referee so that the goal could be allowed.

Pepe was already there talking with the referee and in the end, the referee didn’t have any choice but to go check the goal with the help of the VAR.

Just like Jason had expected, it was very clear that Jason was onside when it was checked on the VAR.

To be fair, one didn’t even need a VAR to confirm whether Jason was offside or not as it was pretty clear with a simple replay that Jason had only burst past the last defender when the ball left Jesus Corona’s foot.

With how clear it was, the referee didn’t have any choice but to allow the goal, but he didn’t take back the yellow card that he had given Jason and he quickly blew for play to continue.

{Well, it seems that debate is over… It seemed quite unnecessary from my point of view, especially with the yellow dishing out a yellow card to the goal scorer}

{I don’t know what words were being thrown around there, but seeing that it ended up with a yellow card, I’m guessing it must have been serious}

{Now, the goalscorer has been marked and has to keep watching over his shoulder for the rest of the match. His team cannot afford to go a man down in this situation and he knows that} The commentator did not stay silent after the whole scenario and made his opinion known.

The referee blew the whistle and the match kicked off again, with the Desportivo das Aves team in possession after being the team to have conceded a goal.

The Desportivo das Aves team didn’t hold the ball for long as the Porto team, rejuvenated by their goal, charged at them and pressed hard, eventually retrieving the ball and launching an attack immediately.

Soon the ball found Jason again on the left wing and Jason immediately cut inward and moved toward the Desportivo das Aves 18-yard box.