"That marks the end of the first half," Jim said as soon as the referee blew his whistle twice to bring the first half to an end. "Both teams gave it their all but it was Unique FC who came out on top in this half thanks to a tremendous long-range strike from Mateo Smith."
"Apart from their last match against Dynamo FC, he has now scored in every single match they've played since the start of their pre-season tour," Steve said.
"Yeah, and he didn't get that much time against Dynamo FC, I think that if he had started or at least been brought in earlier, he would have gotten a goal, that last attempt from him was the closest Unique FC came to getting a goal in that match." Jim expressed.
"The players will be coming back soon for the second half, Unique FC are leading and will want to hold on to that lead but I don't think Wolfsburg will agree to that, let's just wait and see how the German side will respond in the second half. "
In Unique FC's locker room, they were all sitting in their locker room with Norman standing in front of them as usual.
"Good job, everyone, especially you Mateo." The coach said.
"I know that I was the one who took the shot and scored the goal but it wasn't my idea, I don't usually attempt shots from that far out." The winger asked.
"What are you talking about? You were the ones that told us to start trying to score from above instead of below and when you tried it, it worked just like you said it would." Carlos said.
"No, I wasn't the one that figured that out." The winger said as he shook his head.
"Then who was it?" Fred asked.
'You couldn't just take the credit for yourself, Mateo.'
"It was Dave," Mateo said before turning his gaze to his roommate. "Dave was the one who figured out that weakness."
Dave told Mateo about the aerial weakness and told him to relate the info to the other forwards and the attacking midfielders and right now those players were looking at the goalkeeper with shocked expressions on their faces.
"Seriously? You were able to figure that out." Carlos said.
"Coach wasn't even able to see it," Minino said.
"How were you able to figure it out?" Ferran asked.
"Um…..well, since you asked, I guess I can explain it." The goalkeeper asked.
"You guys have fired a lot of flying shots that ended up going over the bar or hitting the crossbar before falling off and during most of those shots, he was glued to just a particular spot, despite noticing that, I wasn't able to confirm my theory until I tried out my shot from the goalpost, he got disoriented and that ball would have gone in if it had been on target, that was when I figured it out."
"Nice way to read the game and see things that even I wasn't able to see, coaching may be an option for you after hanging your boots," Norman said. "Are there any other things you spotted apart from this one?"
"Okay, that's not a problem, with the one you've told us we can try to get more goals against them and extend the lead, what we should be thinking about now is how to counter whatever they're going to throw at us in this second half." Norman expressed.
The halftime break had finally come to an end and now the players were slowly making their way to the pitch as the fans cheered for them.
"Welcome back everyone, the second half is about to kick off and the players are making their way to the pitch now to resume play," Jim said.
"The first half was great and I don't think asking for more of the same is asking too much," Steve said.
The players spread out in their different wings on their sides with Kendra standing over the ball in the kick-off spot.
It didn't take long before the referee blew his whistle and as soon as he did it, Kendra sent the ball rolling back to the midfielder behind him.
"There's the whistle and the second half is in motion," Jim said.
The German side wanted to hold onto the ball and try to break Unique FC with their passes but that didn't quite work out for them as they lost the ball in less than two minutes, Unique FC couldn't even keep hold of the ball as long as the German side and lost it to them again.
"This isn't a very strong start to the second half for both teams, none of them seem to be able to keep hold of the ball for long," Jim said.
The cycle continued until Unique FC won the ball and decided to trap back and organize their play from the back and it worked quite well for them.
"Both teams looked lackluster from the start but looks like Unique FC has finally snapped out of their daze," Steve said.
Martinez moved back with the ball before sending it to Roland who quickly sent it flying toward Minino with a single touch.
The midfielder got a neat touch on the ball and quickly sent it past the player trying to stop him from above just as the player was about to knock the ball off him.
"Nice work from Minino there."
The midfielder raced down the right with the ball before quickly turning toward the center to send the ball to Ferran, Ferran made a little run down the middle before the ball was taken off his foot with a neat tackle but before any of the Wolfsburg players in the area could recover the ball, Mateo quickly stole the ball and quickly broke off into the box.
"This could be Mateo's chance to double the tally for his team," Jim said.
The player behind the winger was quite desperate to stop him from doing whatever he was about to do and ended up pushing the winger down right inside the box.
The referee blew his whistle and quickly rushed to the area to show the player responsible for the foul.
"Mateo's been brought down inside the box, there's a yellow card and now it's a penalty for Unique FC, a massive opportunity for them to put a two-goal cushion between the sides." Jim expressed.
After having a little chat with Carlos, Mateo slowly stepped up to take the penalty kick.
"Looks like Mateo's going to be the one to take the penalty kick, if he scores this, it will be his second goal in the game," Steve said.
The referee made sure that all the players were out of the box before he made his way to the left edge of the box and blew his whistle.
"That's the whistle, can Mateo Smith give his team a two-goal lead over Wolfsburg?"
The winger stared at the ball for a while before he slowly took two steps backward and quickly closed up on the ball.
The goalkeeper was glued to the spot as the ball hit the right side of the crossbar before flying into the goalpost.
"There was simply no stopping that, Unique FC are two goals up now, courtesy of their wonder kid," Steve said.
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.