Greatest Of All Legends - Chapter 745

Chapter 745: Cameroon X2

The following days leading up to the next international game was one of relaxation for Jason and training for the other fit players.

Since he wasn’t heavily injured and didn’t want to spend all the time lounging around in the hotel, Jason followed the other players to the training center for training everyday, but he didn’t join the training sessions.

He wouldn’t be allowed to even if he tried to join them and even if he was allowed, he wouldn’t join them. He didn’t want to end up with anything more than a minor ankle injury.

He took part in all the other activities though. From the match debrief to the physiotherapy sessions, and then tactical analysis, video analysis, and team meetings.

Four days later and a day before the second match against Cameroon, he was finally cleared to join training sessions again, but he knew there was no way he would be part of the starting lineup for that match.

When matchday came, he realized that not only was he not part of the starting lineup, he wasn’t even part of the substitutes.

‘Pretty fair,’ he thought to himself but still followed the team to the stadium, however while the players headed out to the pitch when the time came, he went to the VIP section of the stands above the Nigerian team’s area on the sidelines and sat there to watch the game.

While he sat and waited, the pre-match preparations were already underway with the starting lineups already on the pitch and having sang the national anthem.

Perhaps because all the matches in this particular international break were friendlies, the manager was giving a chance to the players who didn’t usually play the competitive matches so the lineup had quite a few unexpected names.

Jason didn’t know whether it was because the manager was trying to look for hidden gems among the other players or for some other reasons, but at this point it didn’t really matter to him.

If he was on the field for a more competitive match and the manager decided to field fringe players instead of the starters and that cost them the game… then it became his problem, but until then, he’d let the manager cook.

The match soon began with the Cameroon team kicking off the game and right off the bat they tried to control the game’s tempo, clearly trying to avoid letting the Nigeria players have too much time on the ball like in the previous match.

Even though their previous tactic had worked, a lot of it could be chalked down to sheer luck as on any other day they should have lost the game especially since they could barely keep the Nigeria team away.

Even with that they had still swallowed twenty shots with eight of them being on target.

The Cameroon team wasn’t about to find out whether they would have such strong luck today as well. Even if there were a few unfamiliar faces in the lineup, things could end badly for them if they let up so they tried to keep the Nigerian players as far away from the ball as possible.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t keep this up for long as the Nigerian players chased after them like tireless hyenas, constantly hounding them until the ball was stolen.

With the ball in their possession, the Nigerian players first moved the ball around calmly, trying to look for space since the Cameroon team didn’t press hard at all.

Just like in the previous match, they seemed content to sit back and block the path instead of rushing forward to steal the ball right back.

The Nigerian players tried to stay patient, especially with the manager constantly reminding them that the game had just began and they could afford to wait out their opponents, however after passing the ball around for almost two full minutes, the Nigerian players couldn’t take it anymore.

Unlike the Cameroon team that had won the last game, the Nigerian players were playing to recover their pride here. They definitely didn’t have as much patience as their opponents.

The ball soon made it to Simon on the left flank and squaring up against his marker, he slowly rolled the ball forward, staying alert and poised to flick the ball past the opponent’s tackle when it came.

But unlike he was expecting, the guy he was squaring up kept on falling back, not committing to the tackle.

In the end, Simon tried to force a move, moving the ball closeer and seemingly making an effort to cut in, before switching directions when the opponent finally bit the bait, but at this point, it was already too late to shoot so he tried to cross the ball in.

The ball was cleared as soon as it came flying in, not giving any chance to the striker to even get any scraps.

From there, the match continued in full force and frenzy, but that singular encounter soon began to repeat itself in various forms quite a few times all over the pitch.

The Nigerian players constantly tried to break through, but the Cameroon team stayed tight in the center, forcing them out to the flanks.

The problem was that even as they came from the flanks, the Cameroon players kept defending the path towards the center, continuously falling back and only blocking the players from cutting in and getting into dangerous shooting positions.

If the Nigerian players played along and tried to cross the ball instead, the ball would be quickly cleared by the other Cameroon players who were overloading the penalty box.

Yet if the Nigerian players tried to force a move inside, they would be hassled so much that they could barely get any shots away.

At some point, it felt like all the Cameroon players had shown up to do at the stadium was to stop the Nigerian team from scoring.

Unfortunately, thanks to the Rohr having taken out most of the familiar faces, the few quality players left could barely cope with the uncessant hassling and were unable to create the magical moment that could break the deadlock.

In this mode, the first half ended on a boring note with neither side managing to record more than five shots. It was a half filled with fantastic defending efforts from the Cameroon team, but the Nigerian players and their fans did not care to appreciate this.

Fifteen minutes later, they came out more determined than ever to break the deadlock and after the second half tried, they really tried to do so.

The Cameroon team also tried to be a little more positive in the second half, but somehow, the efforts of the two sides canceled each other out and at the end of the ninety minutes and injury time, the match ended underwhelmingly with a goalless draw.