My Goalkeeping System

Chapter 422 Aiming Too High

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It had been three minutes since the match kicked off and so far Unique FC were still with the ball.

They weren't trying to rush things to avoid making any mistakes but still, it didn't look like their attempts to get past their opponents were working so they stuck to moving the ball around while trying to drag them out for now.

Dave had to snap out of his head after a while but he was still sort of pissed off that the system had to shut down like that.

This wasn't the first time the system was shutting down on him in the middle of a match but still, this felt like the first time to him, perhaps that was because of the quest he received which was tied down to the system shutting down.

<I thought you said the relevance of the system was starting to fall out for you>

'If you're going to say something I said at least quote me right, I never said the relevance fell off, just said I'm not that dependent on it anymore, and isn't that a good thing?'

<Yeah, it is and this quest will help you become even less dependent on it>

'Yeah, but if only I could access my stat points…'

<Well, that's on you, I told you to put them into your stats, didn't I? Dumping them all into your energy would have been great. Anyway, your stats are good enough to handle any match including this one>

'I'm aware of that, but this is a match mistakes can come from the defense and that's where I have to make a…..Oh, never mind.'

<Hmph>

Roland received the ball from Mateo who was forced to move back with it.

The left-back had a player quickly heading toward him so he had to send the ball back to Aima who quickly sent it rolling back to Dave.

Dave got his foot on the ball with Carrigher quickly heading toward him, but before the striker could get to him, he sent the ball flying out to Minino.

"Over to Minino."

Minino brought the ball down with his chest and just before the midfielder close to him could do anything, he sent the ball rolling to Martinez who quickly pushed it forward to Ferran.

"They're pushing forward here."

Ferran tried to dribble past the player right in front of him but that was a mistake as the midfielder was able to neatly take the ball off his feet before he could do anything with it, Minino was there to take it off his feet with a neat tackle and get the ball back to the feet of Ferran.

"Oh, that was nicely done by Minino."

With the ball now back to his feet, Ferran quickly pushed forward with it before finding Merino a little to the right.

Merino got his foot on the ball before quickly getting past the player in his way with a neat roulette spin.

He still didn't have that space to make a full run into the box without taking any major risks of losing the ball so he found Ferran who was closing in on the edge of the box from the middle.

Ferran got his foot on the ball before making contact with the defender right in front of him.

He didn't try to do anything selfish and just sent the ball back to Martinez with a backheel pass.

The defensive midfielder got his foot on the ball and quickly sent it rolling to Mateo who was closing in on the box from the left.

"Looking for Mateo."

Mateo was immediately clustered by three players as soon as he got his foot on the ball but he was able to dribble his way past two of the players before nutmegging the last one with a pass to Fredinho.

"He just fought his way around three players."

Fredinho received the ball inside the box but his path was immediately blocked by two players to stop him from taking a shot so he had to send the ball back to Mateo.

Mateo sent the ball flying in toward the box with his first touch.

That was supposed to be set up for Merino but he wasn't able to get to it on time so the ball ended up bouncing on the floor before rolling out for a goal kick.

"Oh, there was no one there."

"They should have done much more with that, they really put the pressure on Lazio there."

With the ball now out of play, Lazio could finally get proper possession of the ball, Unique FC had been hoarding it until it went out just now.

Lazio were trying to tread cautiously with the ball here, they knew what Unique FC were like from their last match so there was no way they were going to underestimate them and try to be stupidly offensive as they did at home.I think you should take a look at

Andrea received the ball on the right from midfield but he had Mateo and Roland quickly closing up on him, he sent the ball rolling back to the midfielder closest to him.

Zahid got hold of the ball and without hesitation sent it rolling toward Carrigher who thought he found an opening to get past both Aima and Adolf but that didn't work out quite well for him as Aima ended up bringing him down right at the edge of the box, maybe it was all part of his plan as the referee ended up blowing his whistle before pointing to the spot for a foul.

"Oh, looks like Lazio just won a free kick in a pretty good spot."

Unique FC players had some problems with that decision but it didn't look like the referee was going to do anything about it.

Andrea was standing over the ball now as Unique FC formed their four-man wall inside the box.

"Andrea converted a pretty neat free kick against Villarreal. Can he add another one to his free kick tally today?"

"Maybe, but then you have to realize that he is up against Dave who hasn't conceded a single free kick since the start of the season." Steve expressed.

All Andrea was waiting for now was the referee's whistle and as soon as he heard it, he slowly took three steps backward.

"There's the whistle, looks like it's time to get that first shot of the game, off-target or on-target, it all depends on Andrea," Jim commented.

Jim quickly closed up on the ball and curled it toward the top right-hand corner of the goalpost.

"Andrea!"

Just before diving toward the ball, Dave saw a flash of the ball falling into the goalpost and that would have been the case here, but he was able to get his left glove on it and that was all he needed to send the ball over the bar.

"Oh, Dave pulls through for Unique FC once again, that was a pretty close save."

"Yeah, good save as expected but now they have a corner kick to deal with."

Zahid was standing over the ball now waiting for the referee's whistle with everyone else running around inside the box.

After making sure that everything was ready, the referee blew his whistle, and without hesitation, the midfielder sent the ball flying into the box.

There was a clash between Adolf and Carrigher which caused the ball to fall off toward the left but before anybody could get to it, Dave dived toward it and grabbed it.

"Looks like that threat has been thwarted and Unique FC are trying to start a counterattack here."

The counterattack attempt came from Dave throwing the ball to Mateo who quickly sent the ball flying over to Merino up front.

However, he wasn't able to capitalize well with that chance and was double-crossed by two Lazio players so the counterattack was thwarted but that didn't mean that goal-scoring chance still wasn't there.

He quickly moved the ball to Ferran who immediately sent it rolling to Mateo who got past the player right in front of him with a neat stepover.

After that, he increased his speed as he was now looking to take on everyone to get into the box and that worked quite well for him as he managed to get past the two players around him with neat ball control but just as he got inside the box, he was taken down from behind under a terrible challenge.

"Oh, that doesn't look great."

The referee didn't need any confirmation as he blew his whistle before making his way to the area to show the defender a yellow card.

"Penalty for Unique FC, this could be the first goal of the match."

It didn't look like Mateo was suffering from any discomfort after that tackle as he was able to get up by himself.

The penalty kick was left for him to take with everyone else behind him, all he was waiting for was the referee's whistle.

"Can Mateo Smith give his team the lead from this spot kick?"

After making sure that nothing was out of place, the referee blew his whistle, and now it was time to see what Mateo could do with this one.

He slowly took two steps backward before he closed up on the ball and fired it toward the right.

Jorge was glued to a spot, but unfortunately, Mateo seemed to have placed his shot too high as the ball ended up hitting the crossbar before falling out for a goal kick.

Lazio fans burst out in cheers as soon as they saw him miss the penalty and the same could be said about the players who were jumping up now.

Mateo had his hand on his forehead as Ferran walked up to him and placed his hand on his shoulder.

"That was a horrible miss."