Chapter 102: First Loss

Chapter 102: First Loss

Chapter 102: First Loss

The ball took flight upon contact with Jason’s foot and thundered to the bottom left corner of the goal almost in a flash.

Hradecky almost couldn’t react, but he had already dived before the shot was taken, but had unfortunately dived in the wrong direction and could only watch from over his shoulder as the ball went past the goal line and slammed into the back of the net.

{5 : 6}

For all his worries and uncertainty, the moment the ball slammed into the back of the net, Jason took off towards the sidelines and jumped into a knee slide with his arms spread out as if to hug the world, a big smile on his face as crowd’s cheers washed over him, wave after wave.

He wasn’t alone in his celebrations as his teammates soon arrived and jumped on him, piling up on him in jubilation while the Porto fans cheered joyously while jumping in their seats, their joy too much to be expressed on their butts.

The commentator also got a word in here and there, but no one in the stadium bothered to listen to the commentator’s ‘expert’ commentary at this moment.

It was merely a round of 32 Europa League match, but the people in the Estadio do Dragao ignored that piece of information and just simply went with the flow and let the joy flow through their bodies as they continued shouting, not caring if their voices were becoming hoarse because of the strain.

Of course, not everyone in the Estadio do Dragao was swept up by happiness and some only had negative emotions coursing through them.

Paulinho wished he could find a hole in the ground to bury himself in as he watched the Porto players and fans celebrate.

He wasn’t the only one, rather everyone on the Leverkusen side from the players to the club staff present, and even the fans were not able to hide their negative emotions from showing on their faces.

The way Porto celebrated was too luxurious for a mere round of 32 victory and it instead made them feel like they had lost out on winning the Europa League final match instead.

Jason himself who led the celebrations, did not know why he was celebrating so wildly on a game that couldn’t be said to be a “huge” one, but he couldn’t stop himself and continued celebrating with the fans.

Maybe it was his Nigerian blood that wanted to quite typically “pepper his enemies,” ... or opponents in this case, but he continued his celebrations, using the last of his self-control to stop himself from doing anything more provocative as all sorts of ideas were popping up in his head and he had to do his best to not let himself slip.

“Anyway, I have to go,” Jason started to say, but was interrupted,

“One more question!” the ESPN reporter pleaded.

Seeing as he had answered two questions from the female CBS reporter, Jason had an inkling of a thought that it would not be fair if he did not answer the same number of questions from this guy as well, even though his last question was a bit annoying, but Jason was still quite happy from winning the game so he quickly forgave him,

“Ask away,” Jason said after a bit of thought.

“Ok thank you,” the ESPN reporter replied but had a crafty smile on his face that unnerved Jason slightly and made him wonder if he had not made a mistake by allowing this guy to ask another question.

“Despite the difficulty, Porto have managed to stand above the Leverkusen team and are the ones who had the last laugh despite the unexpected occurrences in the second leg of the tie. Do you have words for your defeated opponents or even the Leverkusen fans?” the ESPN reporter asked, unable to keep his crafty smile that anticipated Jason’s answer eagerly.

“Nahhhh... I’m not falling for that,” Jason replied with an amused smile on his face as he realized that this reporter really wanted to trip him up.

Whatever he said here would be misinterpreted and would end up as a controversy and Jason wasn’t going to be falling for it.

“Mhm mm, nope, not today,” Jason said while shaking his head.

“Anyway I have to go, I left my cat in the oven and forgot to feed my bread,” Jason said as he backed away from the reporters, eliciting a laugh from the other reporters.

“Don’t you mean that the other way around?” the ESPN reporter asked, confused.

“However you choose to look at it, you’re correct,” Jason replied, but did not stop walking away.

“Somebody call animal protection services!!!” Somebody shouted behind Jason, but he didn’t look back and headed down the tunnel.