Top Bins

The next minutes of the match were a pretty open affair. The two sides managed to create a fair number of chances. Although Jeremiah Hayes Football Institution had a lot of the ball, Jermaine Walter Academy was quite lethal on the counter. It seemed like that was their game plan for the match: to catch Jeremiah Hayes Football Institution on the counter.

34'

Once again, Jermaine Walter Academy was on the counterattack. Dax Walker (Jermaine Walter Academy left-back) stole the ball from Zach at the edge of the Jermaine Walter Academy penalty box and went on a run down the left flank. He soon found himself face-to-face with Lewis Carver (Jeremiah Hayes Football Institution right wing-back), and instead of taking him on, he sent a through ball down to David Adams (Jermaine Walter Academy left midfielder), who was running into the space that Lewis had left behind when he tried to steal the ball from Dax.

David had a lot of space to run into until he reached the edge of the Jeremiah Hayes Football Institution penalty box. He started to slow down and was looking for a way to bypass his marker, one of the three center-backs that was now slowly approaching him.

After taking a little look up, he saw that one of his team's strikers was making a run into an open space between the defender marking him and another defender inside the box. The logical thing for David to do would have been to pass the ball... but scouts were watching, and he had to look cool.

David pushed the ball slightly to his right, teasing a run inside the box, before directing it back outside to the wing, using an elastico to get himself away from Nathaniel Drake (Jeremiah Hayes Football Institution right center-back). He made a run down the wing, with a recovered Nathan chasing after him.

When he got to the byline, he used a Ronaldo-style chop to get himself away from Nathan and have space to charge into the box.

After a few more steps, he realized that he was surrounded from all angles and did the only rational thing—he released the ball to Charles Foster (Jermaine Walter Academy central midfielder), who was currently unmarked as he made a late run into the penalty box.

Charles was still running into the penalty box when he saw the ball rolling towards him. He also noticed that there were multiple people inside the box running toward him. Seeing as he was heavily pressured, he didn't stop the ball... he took a shot first time and watched as his shot somehow evaded the multiple bodies inside the box and etched itself into the top corner.

"Get in!"

[And David Adams is making a run into the box, he's released it for Charles Foster, who's made a late run. Fosterrrr! Foster! Oh my word! What a goal! Talk about top bins... what a hit! And he's put Jermaine Walter Academy ahead.]

[What a goal indeed. I think it's just one of those goals you just can't stop. I mean Jeremiah Hayes Football Institution did everything right. Nathaniel Drake did everything right by the book. He made sure Adams couldn't get into the box and forced him to release it. Unfortunately, David's emergency pass to Charles Foster was succeeded by a thunderbolt of a shot into the top right corner. It's 1–0 to Jermaine Walter Academy. And now it's game on.]

Jerry jogged back to Jeremiah Hayes Football Institution's half of the pitch while watching as the Jermaine Walter Academy players celebrated the goal. He released a small sigh, then stared briefly at Daniel before shaking his head and turning away.

"Fucking hell! Look at that!" Jeremiah tapped Jerry after Charles's shot entered the back of the net. "That's like a Paul Scholes shot. Write his name down, the kid definitely needs a trial."

"Already did. If you like this goal, you should've seen the one he scored three days ago," James said with a smile.

"Are you kidding me?" Jeremiah chuckled. "I might actually start watching these kids now. That shot was beautiful."

"Aren't you concerned about your academy losing the match?" James asked with a raised brow, seeing as Jeremiah couldn't stop talking about Charles's goal.

"Pssh." Jeremiah shrugged. "They'll probably come back or something. If they lose, oh well. We've already written down all the names we need from them."

"Wow..." James chuckled at Jeremiah's nonchalance.

The Jermaine Walter Academy players were quick with their celebrations, and the match restarted. As it was before Jermaine Walter Academy scored the first goal, Jeremiah Hayes Football Institution controlled most of the possession and were looking for a goal. The only difference was this time, Jermaine Walter Academy wasn't going on the counter. They had all their players back and were just looking to hold off the lead until the end of the first half.

The first half ended with the same scoreline. Jermaine Walter Academy was quite annoying to play against when they were parking the bus. Jeremiah Hayes Football Institution managed to get a few shots away from outside the box, but aside from a few curlers from Jerry, none of their shots came close to troubling the Jermaine Walter Academy goalkeeper.

"Alright boys, there's been a massive miscalculation," Victor said to everyone as soon as they entered the locker room. Contrary to the expectations of the players, he wasn't very angry about the goal that Jermaine Walter Academy scored. "I thought that they were going to stick to their game plan against us, but they made a lot of tweaks to it, and I'm going to do the same."

"Daniel, you're coming on for Jordan," Victor said, causing Daniel to look a bit sad, but Victor didn't care. Daniel missed quite a number of sitters before Jermaine Walter Academy scored their first goal. If he had taken his chances, they would have had up to three goals by now. "That means that Jerry is going to play as the striker. And I don't mean as a false nine or any of that bullshit. I mean an out-and-out striker."

"The wingbacks..."

Victor continued to explain the changes in tactics that the team was supposed to implement in the second half until they were alerted by the referee that the second half was about to start.

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