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Chapter 282: The Blue Side of Manchester VI

According to their game plan that had been settled by their manager, the Porto team stayed on the defensive, hoping to get another goal on the counter or at least manage to keep the current scoreline till the final whistle, but the Manchester City, on the other hand, were doing their best to go against that.

Chance after chance came from the Manchester City side but Porto somehow held on and did not let the Manchester City team gain anything more than a wasted shot.

However, as the game progressed, the Manchester City side got more aggressive, both on the defensive and on the attack and they had already recorded three yellow cards from Bernardo Silva, Eric Garcia, and Joao Cancelo just a few minutes after the beginning of the second half.

With Manchester City playing aggressively, Porto had no choice but to up their tempo and do their best to their opponents away from their penalty box which led to the current situation where Mattheus Uribe had Bernando Silva just outside the penalty box of the Porto team.

The free kick was 22 yards away from the goal and was directly in front of the goal which was a very dangerous position for a team like Manchester City which had a way with free kicks thanks to players like Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan on their team.

Unfortunately, Uribe did not have a choice when he made a tackle and he had simply done his best to stop his marker from creating a goal-scoring chance.

The Porto players arranged their wall as Gundogan set the ball down in front of them.

*FWEEEEEEEE*

The referee blasted his whistle loudly and Gundogan ran at the ball while curling his upper body and smashing the side of his right foot against the ball, sending a curling shot at the wall.

Mylo who had just been subbed on for Mehdi Taremi a few minutes earlier was stunned to see the ball flying and immediately turned his body to block the ball but he had turned a bit too much and instead, his movement created just enough space for the ball to fly past him, just skidding off his back and smashing into the back of his team’s goal with Augustin Marchesin being unable to react.

{GOAL!!!}

{Manchester City!!!}

{They’ve taken the lead for the first time in the game and finally seem to be doing justice to the expectations of their fans who will no doubt, be ecstatic with the development of the goal!}

{Wonderful strike and the goalkeeper was stunned to immobility!} Derek Rae shouted into the microphone with his excitement clear in his voice as he watched the Manchester City players celebrate their goal on the pitch.

{It was a well-taken free-kick, but I have to ask what that player was thinking when he dodged the ball instead of blocking it} Alan asked the question that all the Porto fans had in their head as they watched the replay of the goal, but the question, unfortunately, was to remain unanswered for the near future as the Porto manager was already making moves on the sidelines.

After seeing the ball smash into the back of the net, bringing a change to the scoreboard and putting his team at a disadvantage, Sergio Conceicao quickly reacted and turned to the bench, looking for the best move he could make to counter this situation.

His eyes fell on Fabio Viera, and Jason who was seated beside him and he immediately pointed to the two of them,

“You two, get up and start warming up, right now, you have a minute to get ready,” he said with urgency in his voice.

The Porto team was past the stages where they could afford to play it safe and he could only bring out cards that had the potential to be wildcards even in games like this.

It was a dangerous move to bring on two young players who had never had experience with the Champions League in a game where they were losing against an unimaginably strong opponent, but Sergio Conceicao was out of options… even though it was a hypocritical thought when he had already brought on Mylo earlier.

He could only go out on a limb and bring on the combination of players who had helped the team out of tough situations like this one in the past and hope that the team could manage to gain something from the game.

Jason and Fabio were definitely not going to complain that they would finally step on the field and were even a little happy that their team was losing which had gotten the manager to finally turn to them.

Especially after seeing Mylo who had done less for the team than them stepping on the field earlier than them in a Champions League game.

They quickly got to their feet and began warming up, and after a minute, they headed back and started putting their kits in order.

As they adjusted their kits with the manager talking to them about what he wanted them to do once they were on the field, Jason glanced over at the Manchester City stands and saw three players also getting ready to get on the field as well.

Recognizing the three players immediately to be Aymeric Laporte, Ferran Torres, and Phil Foden, Jason nodded to himself as he started trying to internally calculate what the addition of these three players would mean to the current match, but he wasn’t able to come to a conjecture and simply stopped thinking about it.

He’d think more about it on the pitch.

“Jason, I want you on the left side doing exactly what Luis was doing all through the first half. Run at your marker, get rid of him and get the ball forward, simple,” Sergio Conceicao said and turned to Fabio Viera,

“I want you in the center, but you’ll also have to keep your eyes open and follow after Jason so you can support him should he be in a tight location,” Sergio Conceicao continued explaining while the match went on and finally, the ball flew out of play in the 68th minute of the game.