My Goalkeeping System

Chapter 488 Working Backwards

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The atmosphere was in a great state of disarray as Mateo stood over the ball near the edge of the box.

The home fans were cheering him on as loud as possible while the away fans hadn't given up on whistling at him yet.

The anticipation was building up here and the pressure was coming down but the winger kept a calm composure with his left hand on his waist.

"Mateo insists he's going to take this one. Well, he is the team's free-kick taker but I was sort of expecting another Dave free-kick moment." Jim commented. "That said, Supreme United fans are doing everything possible here to make sure the winger doesn't keep his focus up."

"Why do I feel like Supreme United are just using what the media quoted in the article as grounds to do this to Mateo and help their team win this match? I thought he cleared that up during the press conference before the match."

"Yeah, that is definitely what it feels like now, they know how dangerous he is with his finishing and passing, he's Unique FC's main man so him having a bad game will disrupt a lot of things for the home team, but he doesn't seem to be giving them what they want."

Supreme United had to place the four-man wall inside the box with almost everyone else running around inside there

<Honestly, I just wish the ultras from your side would have just picked up something from the interview done by any of their forwards and used it as a reason to whistle them, this is annoying>

'Yeah, but they can't do that now or everyone will forget about Supreme United fans and paint them as the villains. I'm just glad Mateo's handling it fine.'

<I hope he scores this free kick and puts them to shame>

The shrill sound of the referee's whistle suddenly pierced through the air at that moment, and as soon as Mateo heard it, he slowly raised his gaze before taking three steps backward.

"They were whistling at him and throwing things at him yet he went on to score that magnificent goal to equalize the scoreline. Can the winger put this one away and show them once again that his focus is not that easy to break?"

After taking that third step backward he slowly inhaled before flexing his shoulders.

The whistling and Chanting from both sides were still coming when he quickly closed up on the ball and lifted it off the ground with his right foot.

"Mateo!"

The winger sent the ball flying straight toward the top right-hand corner but that was where Perez was expecting him to put the ball and he made no mistake in diving toward it.

However, what he had failed to anticipate was the precise elevation and the winger's swerve.

The elevation looked to be a bit higher than what he had anticipated with his dive but he was still going to get some part of his glove on it.

Well, that was until the ball curled a little further away from him and ended up hitting the crossbar before dropping straight into the goalpost.

"And he pulverizes!" Jim exclaimed as the winger quickly took off to the sidelines pulling off his shirt.

Once again he was heading toward the away fans and this time he was screaming at the top of his voice as he pulled off his shirt.

"He tells them to keep on whistling while he keeps scoring! Elegant strike from the winger!"

Just as soon as Mateo got to the sidelines with his shirt, he turned its back to them.

"Yeah, remember the name! And also remember this day!" He exclaimed but with a more moderate voice than when he was racing there.

It didn't take long before his teammates got there and Ferran didn't hold back in quickly jumping on his back.

The whistling from the away fans seemed to have reduced a bit after witnessing that free kick from the winger and even some of them couldn't help but applaud him.

The voices of the home fans were going up now as the Mateo chants seemed to have drowned out anything coming from the other side.

"Well, after seeing that, I don't think I would be wrong that whistling just seems to be doing the same job as cheering him on, or even better, Supreme United fans should probably rethink their decision to whistle him in this match at this point." Steve expressed.

"Yeah, I'm sure they're doing that now, the whistling seems to be dying down but I doubt they'll completely give up on doing it," Jim commented.

The team's celebration had to come to an end soon and now that it was over and the players were heading back to their positions, Mateo had to walk past the referee while putting back his shirt over his black vest.

He was expecting a yellow card from the official but for some reason, it just never came.

"Well, that's a surprise." He muttered as he continued walking to his side of the pitch.

<I think that shut them up a bit>

'Yeah, I think some of them have lost interest.'

<Well, it was backfiring against them, they wanted to make sure he had a bad game but he's already scored twice so that's already a great performance from him>

'And we have the lead now.'

The match continued just after that with Supreme United slowly passing the ball around near the halfway line.

They tried a couple of quick attacks but the defense were just in the right places to stop them.

Roland was the only one who managed to get off a couple of shots but only one of them seemed to have been a real threat for Dave.

It was a really close one toward the bottom right side of the goalpost while Dave was still on the left, but he was able to get to it just in time to tip it off toward Roland who quickly sent it flying as far away from their goal area as possible.

After that goal from Mateo, what Unique FC had been doing mostly was defending because Supreme United were just all over the place and their midfield wasn't doing anything to help their case.

They just couldn't keep up with them and Mateo seemed to be in secluded spots most of the time because he was being quite heavily marked now.

However, the fact that their defense was able to hold out was a good thing and they kept holding out until the match got to the forty-fifth minute and now they had just three minutes of added time.

Foden received the ball right on the kick-off spot and without hesitation he quickly sent the ball flying toward the right to get it to Diego.

That didn't work out quite well for him as Roland managed to get to the ball with a header and just as the ball fell to Ferran he quickly sent it to Mateo who was near the halfway line with a flick.

"Flicks it over to Mateo."

Pelcao quickly rushed to the winger as soon as he got his foot on the ball but he was able to evade him with a clean nutmeg and now he was racing down the middle with the ball with everyone behind quickly covering up.

"Mateo's taken off here, what's he planning?"

If he was planning anything, Supreme United were determined to stop him and it looked like they needed more than one player for that.

Michael rushed in from the left, Foden from the right, and Pelcao.

They all got to the winger almost at the same time except that Michael was a bit faster and they showed no mercy. Well, Michael didn't.

Mateo crashed to the floor clutching onto his legs as the referee blew his whistle before quickly rushing to the area to show Michael a yellow card.

Martinez did not take that lightly, he rushed to the area and pushed the right back and the defender was about to return the favor when Ferran stepped in to stop him.

The teammates from both sides had to quickly step in and that was where things started to get rowdy with Ferran and Roland trying to make sure a fight didn't break but a lot of tempers sure were flaring.

"Mateo's teammates aren't taking that tackle lightly and to be honest that tackle was something else. Things are getting pretty physical here, the referee has to step in."

Well, he did and a couple of players had to get booked, Martinez was the first.

<I miss those days>

'Huh?'

<Nothing>