Greatest Of All Legends - Chapter 718

Chapter 718: Biggest Night in Club Football XIV

In Uventus’s technical area, Pirlo just barely managed to stop himself from putting his hands on his head in shame.

“Sh*t!” he cursed and kicked at the air in frustration.

This was the worst thing possible that could happen because with just six minutes to go, Bayern would sit back on this goal and do everything possible to keep his players far from scoring.

They wouldn’t even mind getting red cards at this point and if there was one thing a German team was good at, it was at being stubborn and frustrating.

Yet, despite thinking all this, Pirlo still tried to encourage his players as they went back to their positions.

As long as the final whistle hadn’t gone off yet, then he wasn’t giving up on the trophy and he was sure neither the players or the diehard Uventus fans would give up either.

Especially not after watching the players’ performance in this match so far.

One thing to note was that not a single one of the Uventus players looked too down that they had gone behind, or even if they did feel down, they didn’t show it and the game soon resumed with them kicking off.

Just like Pirlo expected, the Bayern players stayed behind the ball, not surging forward on the press and staying content to just wait for the Uventus players to come towards them with the ball and try to get past them, which was exactly what the Uventus team decided to do.

After passing the ball around for a few seconds and realizing that the Bayern players stayed behind, hardly pursuing the ball until it came into their half, Uventus began moving forward with the ball.

It was then that they were met with another side of Bayern’s defense tactic.

As soon as they stepped into their half of the pitch, the Bayern players instantly burst forward on the press and tried as hard as humanly possible to take the ball from the Uventus team.

It seemed they had settled for pressing in their own half and if they managed to steal the ball, then they’d probably play around with it for a while to waste some time before hitting it up the pitch when the Uventus team began applying too much pressure.

Annoyingly enough, it worked as Goretzka stole the ball from Mckennie and passed the ball back to the defense.

The Bayern players began passing the ball around, trying to waste as much time as possible, but the Uventus players were having none of it and pushed far up the field to pressure the Bayern team into clearing the ball back into their half of the field.

The Uventus defense were playing such a high line that the ball cleared by Neuer flew right behind them and had to be collected by Buffon who rarely ever moved up the pitch.

Despite such a clear counter-attacking opportunity with the ball falling behind the Uventus defense, the Bayern players stayed in their half, not attacking the ball.

Buffon collected the ball and quickly passed it to Chiellini who passed to Jason who had swapped positions with Mckennie.

Receiving the ball in the middle of the field, Jason took off into Bayern’s half of the field, no longer caring about avoiding pressure on his ankle.

It was now or never. Uventus had to create a goal as soon as possible or they would end up crashing out of the Champions League, just inches away from the trophy.

As soon as he stepped into Bayern’s half of the field, all attention was on him immediately, but he stayed calm and picking out a path, he turned toward the right, just barely dodging Lewandowski and Muller, but they didn’t fall back and chased him hard from behind.

Just after getting past and heading toward the right, he saw Musiala rushing at him from the front and Gnabry coming behind him from the right.

Trying to look for a passing option couldn’t work as he was completely surrounded with Lewandowski coming from behind and Muller staying on his left.

The only way was through Musiala and Jason suddenly made as if to flick the ball to his left, causing Musiala to change his direction and opening a bit more space on his right.

Smoothly switching his leg from behind the ball to in front of it, Jason flicked it back to the right, completing a reverse elastico and just barely dodging Musiala and making it out of the encirclement.

The cheers from the Uventus fans increased as Jason chased after the ball he had flicked to the right, when suddenly Goretzka came rushing in from behind Musiala, coming from Jason’s right side like a freight truck and slamming into Jason.

Jason was sent flying to the right, but taking it as an opportunity to get to the ball, Jason angled his body and changed his fall into a roll that ended up with him back on his feet and right behind the ball, stopping it and wanting to push forward immediately.

The shouts of foul from the Uventus fans who had watched Jason get slammed away quickly changed into amazed cheers as Jason stopped the ball after getting back to his feet, but before Jason could push the ball forward, Gnabry, who had caught up to him from behind grabbed his shirt and pulled him down to the ground as Jason tried to move.

*Fweeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!*

The referee who had been about to blow his whistle to give Uventus an advantage immediately changed his mind and blew for a foul, rushing up to the scene while rummaging through his pockets.

Pulling out a yellow card that he showed Gnabry immediately, Uventus were given a free kick.

{The sudden run attempt from Jason has come to a dramatic end and Uventus have a free kick from thirty three yards out!}

{Perhaps this set-piece can help them get more men forward} Trevor commented.

{It is a shame about that run from Jason though. He really looked like he was on to something and ready to finesse his way through, but the German giants proved to be a bit too much for him to handle} Martin added with disappointment in his voice.