My Goalkeeping System



It didn't take long before the referee returned from the VAR monitor, and just as he blew his whistle, the screen hanging in the stadium revealed the VAR decision.

The word 'Penalty' was displayed boldly on the screen now as the referee blew his whistle before pointing to the penalty spot.

"Would you look at that, it's a penalty, Lyon have a chance to pull one back." Jim expressed.

"So, that's how they're playing it," Dave muttered before stepping back to his goal line.

"How is that a penalty?" Minino grumbled before attempting to make his way to the referee but Adolf was there to grab him by the shoulder and prevent him from making any mistakes.

<Looks like your lead is in danger now>

[ System deactivated ]

'Yeah, I'll need the system if I'm going to pull this off without any problem but I might still do it without it.' He replied subconsciously. 'The system activates every five minutes after deactivating and lasts just ten seconds before deactivating again, so I just have to stall for a bit to guarantee saving this penalty.'

<Wow, you've already studied the pattern>

'Yeah, sort of.'

<But that's strange>

'Huh?'

<I didn't catch any thought of it in your mind>

'Maybe you were just focusing elsewhere.'

<Yeah, maybe>

The first minute had already passed which meant that Dave still had two minutes to stall.

Mason was the one standing over the ball on the penalty spot and the referee had already blown his whistle.

Letting him take the penalty immediately might cost him so he had to think of something.

"Hey, I heard you missed a penalty in your last match against PSG." The goalkeeper remarked as the striker took three steps backward.

"No, that was Antoine." The striker replied bluntly.

"Oh, and you think you're a better penalty taker than him?"

"Yeah." The striker nodded. "I am the team's designated penalty taker after all, I only let him take that one because we were already four goals up."

"Oh, I see."

"If you're done trying to mess with my mind, I'm going to take this penalty now." The striker remarked before he quickly closed up on the ball and fired it straight toward the goalpost.

'I think that was enough time.'

[ System is back online ]

[ Focus activated ]

Everywhere suddenly turned dark and now he could see that the ball was heading toward the right, he quickly followed the ball but just before the ball could get to him, something happened.

[ System deactivated ]

"No." He gasped as the ball quickly shifted a little further to the right.

He stretched his hand to its full length all in the effort of reaching the ball but he only managed to get the tip of his gloves on it as the ball ended up getting past him to fall into the goalpost.

"He makes no mistakes when it comes to penalty kicks," Jim commented.

The striker just stood there and pointed to the sky with both of his hands as his teammates quickly closed up on him and brought him down to the floor.

"That was supposed to last for five seconds," Dave muttered with a confused expression on his face before quickly sitting up on the floor.

<The pattern changed>

'Yeah, it only lasted for five seconds this time, but why?'

"Lyon finally have their equalizer with forty-one minutes of the clock." Steve articulated. "They've made things pretty tough for Unique FC so far, I wasn't expecting their equalizer to come from a penalty kick but things turned out that way and we're back to square one now."

The match continued after all the celebration and Unique FC fans kept cheering on their fans as loud as they could but it wasn't really working like it used to.

For the first time this season, Unique FC had come face to face against tough opponents who knew how to handle them quite well.

They were aware that Mateo was their special weapon so they tied him down, every little space the winger had at the start of the match was gone now and even when he managed to get his foot on the ball, it was taken off his feet before he knew it.

It was like they had studied his playstyle which made him more confused because they weren't playing like this during the start of the game.

The winger had to resort to sending the ball out as soon as he got his foot on it and that meant that his teammates had to rule out his assistance in their attack for now.

That made things more difficult for them because no matter what they tried, Lyon was always one step ahead and they were thwarting them quite well.

Minino had to resort to outside-the-box shots twice but one ended up hitting the crossbar before flying over and the other one just flew over.

Their only saving grace was that their defense were doing okay in stopping their advances and Dave without the aid of his system was able to stop their deadly shots.

As long as the shot wasn't fired from a very close distance, the goalkeeper had what it took to stop it even without his system.

However, even with all their efforts, it was obvious that they were starting to get overwhelmed by how fast their opponents attacked whenever they did.

Five minutes had to be added to the time after it hit the forty-fifth minute, and in the third minute of added time, Lyon began to advance with an attack again.

One of the midfielders was able to wrestle the ball off Mateo after Ferran tried to find him down the left, and now that the player had the ball, he quickly sent it rolling to Duncan who immediately took off with it.

"Lyon are with the ball here and they're pushing forward with it."

Duncan was just about to run into Frankie when he quickly sent the ball rolling to Antoine down the right.

The right winger took off with the ball toward Roland but just before the left-back could get close enough to try anything, he pushed the ball back to Duncan who swiftly got past the defender.

"They got past Roland, this could be their chance!"

The attacking kept moving forward with the ball, and just before he could enter the box, he drilled the ball in low toward the middle.

With a little bit of leg stretch, Mason was able to get his foot on the ball before Adolf, and with Dave rushing out, he quickly pushed the ball to the right and Antoine made no mistake in putting it into the empty net.

Roland was right behind the winger at that time and he couldn't help but crash to his knees after letting out a deep sigh.

"Oh, my goodness! They have the lead! The French side stuck together with that one and it paid off, what a goal!"

'Oh, come on.' Dave sighed inwardly before crashing to the floor on his back.

<Looks like their coach did a better homework compared to what Norman did> Catherine remarked. <That or they're just the head on superior team>