Chapter 339: International Debut II
Chapter 339: International Debut II
Osimen nodded affirmatively and kept moving towards the Sierra Leone goal, while Jason reduced his speed and signaled for a pass from Etebor.
Etebor didn’t hesitate and sent the ball rolling over.
The ball reached Jason and he turned around to face the Sierra Leone goal only to find himself almost surrounded by the Sierra Leone players with them closing at him by the second.
Finding himself in such a situation, Jason didn’t hesitate and immediately pushed the ball toward where he could find the widest space.
The place with the widest space was on the right, and Jason immediately pushed the ball that way and took off, sticking with the basics and just pushing the ball out of the way of his opponents.
Jason didn’t move straight and kept moving to ensure that the players obstructed themselves and couldn’t reach him, but that wouldn’t work forever.
However, it worked long enough for Jason who was drawing nearer to the right side of Sierra Leone’s 18-yard box.
Glancing forward to see Osimen still running forward and about to run past the last defender, Jason immediately swung his foot at the ball, sent it high into the air, and curling into Osimen’s path in front of the goal.Osimen saw the ball coming his way and jumped at it superhero-style, catching it off his head and sending it past the Sierra Leone goalkeeper who couldn’t reach the ball in time.
{Oh my word!}
{What a cross! And what a header!}
{Jason Express Delivery and Osimen Airlines coming together to create an absolute peach of a goal!}
{Nigeria have one back! Only one left in it now, and there’s plenty of time left!} The commentary was as wild as the Nigerian excitement and celebrations ensued on the pitch, off the pitch, and in every building in Nigeria where the match was being watched.
Osimen had gone over to hug Jason and the other Nigerian players weren’t left out of the celebrations as they wore their excitement on their faces.
If one didn’t watch the match from the beginning, one would think that Nigeria was the one in the lead.
#70th minute…
After the Supa Eagles got their third goal, the Sierra Leone team tried to lock up their defense as they were now only one goal away from conceding.
They had first tried to attack the Nigeria team as hard as they could, but after having two counters that almost ended in them conceding and losing their lead, they had decided to settle back and defend their lead till the final whistle.
Unfortunately, the Nigerian players disagreed with this decision of their opponents as that meant they would be the ones to lose the game, hence they had increased their efforts to get the goal that would be the equalizer.
Sierra Leone’s response to this was a tighter defense and more aggressive style of play and it didn’t take them long to start racking up yellow cards.
In less than ten minutes, the referee had shown two yellow cards and he was about to show another one when Jason was brought down on the right flank in Sierra Leone’s half of the field by a rough tackle from his marker.
As Jason went down, Osimen hurried over and would have done something that could lead to a worse punishment, but he was quickly stopped by Ahmad Musa telling him to calm down.
The referee didn’t hesitate to show the Sierra Leone player a yellow card while Jason was pulled up by Osimen.
“Are you alright?” Osimen asked Jason who nodded, the pain from the tackle already fading away.
“Go back to their penalty box, I’ll try to send the ball as close to their goal as possible, all you’ll need to do is dodge those guys and send the ball in… Hopefully,” Jason said to Osimen in a low voice while Ahmad Musa listened in on the conversation.
After receiving a pitch-perfect pass from Jason earlier that helped him score, Osimen didn’t have any doubts in mind and he just nodded affirmatively and started heading over to Sierra Leone’s 18-yard box while Ahmad Musa did not move too far away.
Jason took the ball and placed it down where the referee pointed out and glanced at the Sierra Leone goal.
He had been brought down on the right flank, just about ten yards from the right side of the penalty box, but the angle was too awkward to take a free kick, otherwise he would have tried to recreate Christiano Ronaldo’s rocket free kick from his time with Man Red.
Of course, it wasn’t impossible to take the shot directly, but this was not the time for experiments.
His team was losing and they needed an equalizer as soon as possible so Jason could only go for the better option of sending in a cross and hoping his teammates could finish off the cross.
As for whether Osimen would be the one to actually score, Jason didn’t know as he knew that anything could happen in that situation.
He had experienced it firsthand with Mylo and Fabio Viera in the match against Man Blue earlier in the season.
Nevertheless, he was going to do his bit and send the ball towards where he had said he would, whatever happened after that was up to luck, though he hoped the ball ended in the back of the Sierra Leone goal one way or the other.
The referee soon finished arranging the wall and blew his whistle loudly.
*Fweeeeee*
On hearing the referee’s whistle, Jason once again glanced at Osimen from where he stood and took a deep breath before he started running towards the ball and hitting it deftly with his right foot, sending the ball flying.
The ball took off and curled inwardly into the Sierra Leone penalty box.
The players of the two teams surged towards the path of the ball, but Osimen who had received a heads up from Jason was ahead of all of them and as soon as the ball appeared in front of the goal, Osimen was in the air to meet with his head.
{He rises!}
{Goal!}
{It’s Jason Express Delivery and Osimen Airlines again and this time, they’ve gotten an equalizer!}
{What a match! It’s the eight-goal that’s gone in with both teams having an equal four to their name!}