My Goalkeeping System

"Mateo!"

The winger released the ball with a shot just before the left-back could get to him.

The ball was sent flying toward the right side of the goalpost with a little elevation as the goalkeeper dived toward it but he wasn't able to get his hand to it as the ball hit the post and fell into the goalpost.

"He's put it away! Oh my! What a goal!" Jim exclaimed.

As soon as Mateo saw that ball enter the goalpost, he let out a loud scream as he raced to the sidelines and jumped as high as he could, and just as his feet touched the ground, he was pulled down by Ferran, Minino, and a few other teammates who were on his body now.

"Nobody does that better than him, he's turning into Ciro Martinez, Ciro Martinez with a right strong foot.

"Yes, we just have to get one more goal now!" Dave said with an elated voice.

<Yeah>

"Looks like all he needed was for Dave to come onto the pitch and start giving him long balls like that," Steve said. "Dave Richards has now provided four assists in his career as a goalkeeper and three of those assists had been to Mateo Smith including this one."

"He didn't even have an assist to his name until near the end of last season and it looks like he's still going, I wonder if he will be one of those goalkeepers to score a goal." Jim expressed.

"Judging from the shot he pulled off against Manchester on Sunday, I'm pretty confident he will be able to at least have one goal to his name before he retires," Steve said.

"Yeah, or a couple, I think he can get a couple or more than that but his position is in between the sticks so it's hard to say," Jim said.

Unique FC fans were starting to intensify their chants now that their team just had one goal in it.

Eryk was standing over the ball waiting for the referee's whistle and as soon as he heard it, he rolled the ball to the right midfielder.

"The game has resumed here, just at the start of the second half, Unique FC have managed to pull one back thanks to Dave's intelligence pass and sight, and Mateo's brilliance and wonderful finishing." Jim narrated. "They still have a lot of time left to make the match even, can they do it or is Benfica going to end up increasing their lead?"

For now, Benfica were trying their best to keep the ball to themselves while looking for good attacking options, their first attempt to start something had resulted in Roland clearing the lines and sending the ball out for a throw-in.

"I said it, Jim, I said Unique FC were going to hit them hard in this second half and it's already happened, way earlier than I expected," Steve said.

"Yeah, Steve, nobody was expecting that at least not at that moment, I think Benfica are going to start marking the winger tightly now that they've seen what he can do," Jim said.

Eryk received the ball twenty-five yards from the box and feigned shooting before sending it over to Bartosz who quickly crossed it into the box to Lakoviç but Adolf was there to clear the ball with a header before it could get to the right winger.

"Nice clearance from Adolf, who knows what would have happened if that ball had gone past him," Jim said.

"Possibly another goal from Lakoviç but there's no guarantee that it would have gone in with Dave there."

The ball fell off toward Ferran and Eryk but before Ferran could get hold of the ball, Eryk got his foot on it and passed it to their right back who had closed up on the wind a little now.

The wing-back pushed forward with the ball a little before he sent it flying toward the box.

Just like the first shot he faced, this one was also heading directly toward him so all he needed to do was jump up and catch it and that was exactly what he did.

"There's no way they're going to be able to beat Dave if they keep firing shots directly at him," Steve said.

Dave quickly threw the ball on the floor and pushed it forward a little before he sent it flying toward Carlos who seemed to be in a better position than Mateo who had covered up a bit down the wing for defensive purposes.

Carlos brought down the ball with his chest and struggled past the midfielder marking to create enough space for him to run down the wing but he wasn't free yet as the player was hot on his trail and was quickly catching up to him.

"Carlos will have to think of something here or he's going to lose the ball," Jim said.

The winger also thought the same and had a really good idea to get rid of the midfielder.

He quickly stopped and turn, allowing the player to zoom past him as he was running really fast and didn't know that he was going to suddenly stop.

Before the player could close up on him again, Carlos pushed the ball a little further toward the box and sent it to Gregory with a low pass.

Gregory received the ball and quickly twisted away from the center back marking him before he sent the ball flying toward the top left-hand side of the goalpost.

"Gregory!"

All the goalkeeper could do was leap toward the ball as it flew past him and hit the crossbar before falling out for a goal kick.

"Crossbar! Oh, that was so close, they were so close to getting their second and taking the lead.

"I was open here and calling for the ball, Gregory," Mateo said as he walked toward the youngster.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't see you," Gregory said.

"It's okay, that was a pretty good attempt, that ball would have gone in if you had aimed lower."

The match continued till the sixty-seventh minute with none of the teams being able to conjure something up, Benfica had not been able to get a good shot on Unique FC's goalpost so far.

Eryk was racing down the middle with the ball now and just before he could run into Adolf, he passed the ball to Lakoviç who had Roland on his tail and was brought down by the wing-back before he could get a proper hold of the ball.

The referee blew his whistle and quickly made his way to the spot as that was clearly a foul, no card was shown though.

"Benfica have won a free-kick right at the edge of the box, this could be their chance to retake the lead," Steve said.

Lakoviç stood over the ball as Unique FC formed their four-man wall, they also made sure to put someone below in case the winger decided to go from there.

The referee blew his whistle after everything was set, Lakoviç wasn't too quick to move though as he slowly took two steps backward before he closed up on the ball and sent it flying toward the right side of the goalpost from the top.

Dave was super quick to react and just before the goal could go any further, he dived toward it and caught it with both of his gloves, something that no one expected.

"Oh, my, he caught it, I don't think I've ever seen any goalkeeper catch a free-kick like that." Jim expressed.

The fans had some wild reactions after seeing that and it was only natural because that was a wild save.

"That guy," Lakoviç muttered with mixed expressions of shock and frustration written all over his face.

*****

New year mass release goals.

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.