Chapter 16: A true battlefield
As soon as the kick off was done we all rushed to press our opponents, with only 25 minutes left we couldn't waste any more time, every single second was important, we had to do our absolute best to score and earn a place in the A team.
If we won the game it would even be possible for more than 6 people to be chosen to join in the A team, even if they wouldn't all be part of the starting eleven that's still something they didn't want to miss out on.
But even if we were to lose they may still choose between 3 to 2 people they find talented, that's usually what happens everytime. That environment made it so that everyone wanted to prove themselves and show their worth.
Even if we were all a team those last few minutes felt more like a free for all, everyone pressed high to make a change in the game and and show their value.
Ricardo took it upon himself to redeem himself from this one goal I scored while he was guarding me and immediately rushed on the offensive alonside their 2 strikers.
With one of their defenders out of the field it was clear that their best bet would be to score another goal to secure the win and that's what they are trying to do.
I tried my best to try to stop Ricardo and even two teamed him with Nathan but he still managed to sneak a pass to another midfielder who ran to the offense.
With most of our team who were pressing high they easily managed to get through us and reached our defense, I still did my best to follow up and guard one of their strikers.
Now that they reached our defense I knew that I shouldn't worry about Ricardo, the only one who can actually guard him is none other than Pedro, in the first half he's the one who have been saving us the most.
This time Pedro guarded Ricardo extremely closely and didn't let any pass get through to him. One of their midfielders then tried to play it more aggressively, he centered the ball to the striker I was guarding while hoping to get an easy assist but I managed to easily hit it in mid air and pass it to Nathan who was waiting for the counter.
Our 2 wingers immediately tried to run alongside him to make use of the number advantage, 'now that they lost a key player we might have a chance.' That was the thought in everyone's mind.
I also started sprinting to the offense, I'm the last person who got subbed in and the one who had the most endurance initially, I wasn't planning on stopping sprinting for those whole 25 minutes that we had left.
Thanks to our two wingers Nathan swiftly went past all of their midfielders that stayed back, now there were just 3 defenders that he had to go through and by now I also managed to catch up to them.
Now we had a huge advantage in number and I could clearly see that they started panicking, they knew that if we scored that one the score will finally be even and that they their place in the A team would be at risk.
That panic started to express itself in their plays since 1 of them immediately rushed towards Nathan who simply passed it to the side, the ball easily got trapped by our left wing who started rushing towards their net.
Our left winger was by far the fastest one in our team, that's what earned his place in our team. Last time I checked out his stats with [Eyes of the Lord] his acceleration was at 62 and his top speed reached 59.
Even if all of his other stats were very much lacking that enough made him a huge threat to the opponents defense. One of them noticed that and rushed towards him to stop him.
Stopping him wasn't difficult, I already knew his dribbling and ball control were barely above 20 so he for sure wouldn't try to do anything crazy.
Our right wing who was a smart all rounder took this opportunity and ran in the opposite direction, he was smart enough to know where was the easiest place for our left wing to pass him the ball.
Unfortunately for him the last defender noticed him at the last moment and followed him, the goalkeeper also noticed how dangerous his position was and got ready to stop him.
That's when I took the chance and ran in between both of them. "Pass it to me!" I looked at our left winger and asked for a pass. He ended up hesitating for a bit but passed it to me when he saw no one was guarding me.
"Fuck" Unfortunately the pass had a pretty hard angle and he ended up passing it way too far from me, I could clearly see that both the last defender and the goalkeeper rushed straight towards me.
"You better not miss it!" I sprinted as hard as I could and managed to stop the ball with a slide tackle and then passed it to our right wing who was now free from any defender.
I was still on the ground when I made the pass so it was a bit off in term of power and precision but luckily it still reached him and he easily tapped it into the goal.
"3-3!" Evans announced the score to everyone.
With now only 16 minutes left to play we all knew that the last goal might be the most important.
This time nobody dared to slack off, everyone was planning to fight with everything they had. Some played to defend their honor while some played to keep their place in the team. But the thing they all had in common was that they were going to go all out from now on.
As soon as the whistle blew the A team's striker passed the ball back to Ricardo and started running. This time their whole offense started running in almost full synchronization.
Ricardo was always at the center of it relaying the passes but everything was moving so fast that even with my high kinetic vision stat I could barely follow up on what was happening.
It felt as if everything they did in the first half was nothing but a joke. Now Ricardo finally got serious and I got to notice how great his passing was. His B rank special weapon was actually one that focused on his first touches.
He was amazing at that, as soon as the ball touched his feet it was already on the way to another one of his teammates. And the way he moved made it way harder to guard him.
That B rank special weapon was extremely annoying but he still had 3 other special weapons, that was my first time going against someone so much stronger than me. Some of his stats are already pretty higher than me but his special weapons are what sets us so far apart.
Him becoming serious switched the whole dynamic of the field, now even if I kept sprinting around in the defense it was useless, I did my best in annoying them as much I could but that level of play wasn't something I was used to.
I was able to stop a single player but I didn't know how to stop such a well formed team offensive, all I could do was rely on Pedro who was guarding Ricardo but this time Ricardo didn't take any risk and passed Pedro thanks to a sneaky one two pass with another midfielder.
"Leave it to me!" Soon enough he was face to face with Alex who still tried keeping a confident smile on his face while reassuring us.
Unfortunately that didn't stop Ricardo from shooting the ball at full power into the right side of the goal, Alex did jump to save it but his reaction time was a little too late.
Ricardo scored his 3rd goal of the day while only being a midfielder. Team A was now leading 3-4.