"Things aren't looking good for Unique FC here, they just got their equalizer and now the most crucial player in their team is being sent off," Jim said.
"No way! That ball didn't touch my hand!" Dave asserted before walking closer to the referee. "The VAR is there for a reason, right? Why don't you go get a clear look at the footage?"
"Yeah," Adolf said.
The referee was about to say something when he heard one of the video assistant referees say something through his earpiece.
"Looks like Dave Richards won't be going out just yet, the referee is heading to the VAR monitor now to confirm his decision," Dave said.
"It looked like he was telling the referee something about the ball not touching his hand there, maybe it didn't touch his hands, let's get a closer look," Steve said.
After rewatching the footage carefully on the VAR monitor, the referee quickly made his way back to the pitch and called off the red card.
The fans, his teammates, and the coach all breathed a sigh of relief after seeing the referee call off the decision.
"As expected, the red card will not stand, that was the right call but he shouldn't have been shown the red card in the first place," Jim said.
"Yeah, but I don't really blame him," Steve said. "I mean when you look at it from one angle, it did look like it touched his arm, that's the essence of the VAR to step in during situations like this, the referees are human beings too so making one or two mistakes at some point in the match is inevitable."
'I'm glad that was taken care of well.' The goalkeeper said subconsciously as he slowly moved back to his goalpost.
<You're lucky or maybe it's because this is just a friendly match, some referees wouldn't have bothered to check the VAR and you would be taken off the match like that>
'Yeah, you're right.'
There was a drop ball because of the interruption which wasn't actually a foul and because it was done close to their box, the Bilbeth Premier League side were the ones to win the ball.
"It's nice to see that Dave Richards didn't have to be cut off from the match, things would have gone straight downhill for them if that decision hadn't been called off." Jim vocalized.
Dave pushed the ball a little further toward the edge of the box before he sent it flying in, this time he wasn't aiming for the goalpost, he just wanted to give the ball to someone in a very good position.
Minino caught hold of the ball and quickly flicked it to Martinez with his back heel.
Martinez caught back with the ball before he passed it to Roland who was going on the offensive now.
The left-back quickly took off down the middle and just before having to face two Barcelona players, he passed the ball to Minino who was free on the right now.
"Unique FC are doing well to move the ball around here." The midfielder caught hold of the ball and quickly took off down the right wing.
A couple of Barcelona players were trying to close down on him from the box area.
The midfielder looked confused for a second there until he quickly evaded the defender who got closer to try and stop him and now that he was closer to the edge of the box, he quickly drilled a pass low to Ferran who was right at the edge of the box.
"Nice work from Minino."
The midfielder would have loved to shoot from there but his path was blocked.
"Fredinho!" He yelled before quickly laying off the pass to the striker inside the box.
"This could be the moment."
The striker feigned shooting toward the goalpost to bring down both of the players right in front of him before firing the ball toward the goalpost.
"Fredinho!"
Frank dived toward the right side of the goalpost to keep out the ball but it was no use as the ball ended up hitting the post before rolling out for a goal kick.
"Oh, it hit the post! That was so close!" Jim exclaimed.
Fredinho slapped his face with his palm and let out a deep sigh before he slowly began to retreat.
"That could have gone in and to think that he had already taken care of those two by faking to shoot that first time, that could have gone right in a lot of ways." Steve expressed.
The match continued with both teams trying their best to get a goal that could probably be considered the winning goal.
Just like in the first half, FC Barcelona were still dominating the match but they weren't getting past Unique FC's defense as easily as they were doing in the first half.
Frednado got hold of the ball from Vasquez after the striker failed to get past Adolf.
The midfielder quickly moved back with the ball to avoid Martinez but the defensive midfielder was still chasing him so he had to give the ball to the right midfielder who quickly sent the ball to Ciro.
"Ciro's with the ball now."
The winger raced toward the box with the ball glued to his feet but just before he could do anything with it, the ball was taken off him by a neat tackle from Mateo, he was right behind him but he was able to neatly win the ball back.
"Nice tackle from Mateo to stop Ciro from cooking up something menacing," Jim said.
"He's not always that defensive, chasing the ball isn't exactly but I guess he realized that he has to do it in a match like this," Steve said.
The match had just entered the eightieth minute and FC Barcelona had won a free kick just twenty-five yards away from the box after Fredinho was brought down under a careless challenge by Martinez.
"This doesn't look good," Dave muttered as he adjusted his gloves.
There was no question on who was going to take it, Ciro Martinez was one of the most formidable free-kick takers the world of football had ever seen, which made him the most formidable long ball specialist among all the active footballers.
He scored fifteen free kicks from twenty-seven attempts last season so who else would it be but him?
Unique FC made sure to form a four-man wall in the direction the ball was facing and they made sure to put someone below.
"This could be FC Barcelona's chance to take the lead once again with just ten minutes of regular time left," Jim said.
[ Ball magnet unable to activate ]
[ 6/6 tries completed ]
[ Cooldown time left: 17 minutes ]
'Damn, I've used up my ball magnet tries, and I need seventeen minutes before I can use it again.'
<The match would be over by that time>
'I know that, I'm going to have to do this without ball magnet.
[ Shot stopping attribute activated ]
[ +10 stat points added to all physical stats ]
[ Strength: 34(10) ]
[ Dexterity: 49(10) ]
[ Endurance: 30(10) ]
<You haven't used that for a while>
'Yeah, because it can only be used during matches and I hadn't really had any use for it in the previous matches.'
<Yeah, you have a point, just keep your eyes in the air>
'Roger.'
"Can the long ball specialist convert this one?" Jim said as soon as the referee blew his whistle.
Ciro didn't take off as soon as he heard the referee's whistle, he stared at the ball for a little while before he slowly took three steps backward and paused for a while before he quickly closed up on the ball.
He pulled his left leg back and sent the ball flying toward the top right-hand side of the goalpost.
"Ciro!"
Dave quickly dived toward the ball and despite the ball being fast, he was able to get a hand to it but because he didn't have ball magnet activated, he wasn't able to get a proper feel on it and the ball was just too fast to be pushed out like that.
The ball ended up smashing past his hand and hitting the angle of the crossbar before falling straight into the goalpost.
"Oh, what a goal!" Jim exclaimed as Ciro's teammates rushed toward him and brought him down right where he was standing. "Dave did his best to stop it but it was just too strong for him! The long ball specialist strikes again! That was magnificent!"
After crashing to the floor, the goalkeeper just didn't feel like getting up quickly.
"I had plus ten boosts in my stats." He muttered.
****
New year mass release goals.
A magic castle= one extra chapter.
Two magic castles= two extra chapters.
Mass release for goals met last month will still be rewarded on the due dates.
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