My Goalkeeping System

The penalty kick was set to be taken with Lakoviç standing over the ball at the penalty spot and Alexander jumping up and down on his goal line.

"The moment of truth is here, can Lakoviç send it home and put his team two goals up?" Jim said as soon as the referee blew his whistle.

Lakoviç stared at the ball for a while before he slowly closed up on it and drilled low toward the left side of the goalpost with Alexander glued to the middle of his goal line.

"He's put it away and Benfica are two goals up," Jim said as two of his teammates got closer to him to give him high fives.

"Two goals behind," Dave muttered with his arms crossed, he didn't have a nice look on his face.

After that goal, the referee blew his whistle twice to bring the match to an end as the added time had been exhausted.

"That's the end of the first half, pretty much what we expected don't you think, Steve?" Jim asked.

"Yeah, I expected Benfica to be leading at the end of this half, they're a team that likes to press high, something Unique FC finds very hard to contain, Unique FC had more of the ball as expected against a team that only cares about getting the ball forward and they also had a couple of chances which Mateo Smith wasn't able to convert but I hope he adjusts his shooting boots for the second half because they will need it."

"So you think they're going to do something in the second half."

"Of course, they're going to do something all Norman has to do is make the necessary changes, putting Dave in that goalpost will improve their defense, that's a change I want to see in the second half, they may not be able to beat Benfica but they'll definitely hit them hard in the second half."

Inside the locker room, the players were sitting on the benches, most of them had pulled off their shirts while a few of them still had theirs on and as always, Norman was standing in front of them near the board.

"At least you guys did better than you did against Manchester United." He said. "But the truth is that their style of play is really tiring you guys out and my tactics don't seem to be working."

"Yeah," Carlos said.

"But I think I've figured it out."

"You have?" Adolf said.

"Yeah." The coach said with a nod. "They love pressing high which means they leave themselves a little light at the back during their attacks and what is used to punish that level of offensive play if anything should go wrong?"

"A counterattack," Roland replied.

"Exactly but it seems like you guys haven't gotten the chance to do that, you did get one chance but Alexander didn't use it."

"Huh?" Alexander said before raising his head to look at the coach.

"That block and rebound save you made, their defense was weakened at that point due to most of their players including the wing-backs being on our side of the pitch. Mateo and Carlos were in good positions to receive the ball at that moment but you decided to throw the ball to Roberto."

"Oh, I didn't see them, I'm sorry." The young goalkeeper said.

"There's no need to apologize, you're still young and inexperienced no one would blame you for that, but Dave will have to replace you in the second half if we're going to be able to pull something."

After taking care of that and talking about a few other things with the players, it was now time for them to start heading back to the pitch.

Dave caught up with Alexander on their way out of the tunnel and he had something he wanted to say to him.

"Hey, you did pretty great out there, you have what it takes to be a fine goalkeeper, better than I did." The goalkeeper.

"Thanks, Dave," Alexander said with a smile.

'That's the truth, you're better than I was at your age.' He said subconsciously before walking past him.

"Hey, Dave," Mateo called just before they could step onto the pitch.

"Huh?" Dave said before turning his gaze to him.

"Long balls, please." The winger said before making his way onto the pitch.

"I'll try my best." He muttered.

"The second half is about to kick off and it looks like Norman made those changes I wanted, Dave is on the pitch now and so are Adolf and Minino," Steve said.

"Their ball magnet is in the game now, I think scoring for Benfica is going to be something tough from this point onwards," Jim said.

Unique FC kept the ball with their neat passes while trying to find a way through but so far they had not been able to do anything and when Mateo tried to create one of his dribbling and scoring moments he lost the ball.

Right now, Benfica were pressing high against them while trying to look for a way through.

Eryk received the ball from their central midfielder before sending it to their right midfielder who didn't waste time in sending it to Lakoviç from the top.

"Lakoviç."

Lakoviç tried to dribble his way past Roland and when he couldn't succeed in doing that, he quickly cut the ball toward the edge of the box from the side before he fired the ball toward the goalpost.

The ball had gone straight toward Dave so he didn't have any trouble palming it down before catching it.

"That's a wasted effort."

"Now's your chance, Dave." The goalkeeper muttered to himself before he quickly threw the ball up and sent it flying toward Mateo.

This wasn't the counterattack Norman talked off as the right-back was right behind him but if his pal Mateo asked for long balls, he was going to give them to him.

Mateo neatly trapped the ball and waited for the right back to get closer to him before he put the ball through his legs with his back heel and zoomed past him to receive it at the other end.

"Mateo's loose on the left wing now," Jim said.

The winger didn't care about the center backs heading toward him and just kept going where he was going.

The first center-back tried to bring him down with a tackle but he quickly pulled the ball closer to his left foot to evade him and jumped up to avoid tripping on his legs with his right foot.

The other center-back tried to bring him down with his body but the winger wriggled free from him and got past him with a swift turn.

"Mateo's still going and now he's through on goal!" Jim exclaimed.

The winger was right inside the box with the left back closing up on him and the other players quickly heading toward him.

"Mateo!" Jim exclaimed as he pulled his leg back and sent the ball flying toward the goalpost.

****

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