My Goalkeeping System

There was a little bit of tension in the air as Lave City's striker Kim stepped up to take the penalty kick.

Dave had never saved a penalty kick in his career and facing one again was making him really nervous.

"Lave City have been given the advantage to take the early lead here, can Kim make proper use of this massive opportunity?" Jim said.

"Kim has converted eighty percent of all the penalty kicks he has taken this season, let's see if he can use this one to boost his percentage score," Steve said.

The striker stood over the ball with his hands placed on his waist while Dave did a little jumping in the middle of his goal line to ginger himself just like Catherine had suggested.

The referee blew his whistle as Kim slowly removed his hands from his waist and took two steps backward.

<You can do this Dave>

The striker quickly raced toward the ball and drilled it toward the bottom right-hand corner.

"Kim!"

Dave dived toward the ball and blocked it with the whole of his hands causing it to roll away from him a little bit.

Lave City players along with Unique FC players raced toward the ball to do what they were supposed to do to it but before any of them could get closer, Dave stretched his hands and pulled the ball closer before covering it with his body.

Unique FC fans were going wild now after witnessing Dave make an important save like that.

"Unbelievable, Dave Richards has denied Kim the chance to give his team an early lead," Jim said.

"I think Kim underestimated him a bit there, I don't think there was that much power behind that shot," Steve said.

"Yeah, but it's still a wonderful save from Dave Richards," Jim said.

"Yeah, a very wonderful save."

Dave had started a counter-attack after making that save by quickly throwing the ball to Ferran but the ball had ended up flying over the bar after Fred was set up to score.

"Oh, that was a really good chance but it's flown over the bar," Jim said.

That was a very good chance, Merino floated the ball to him from the right wing to finish off with a volley at the edge of the box but he ended up sending it wide.

The match had entered the eighteenth minute now and still, there has been nothing from both sides but Unique FC were the ones controlling the game as always, that penalty kick was the closest Lave city have come to scoring so far.

Adolf sent the ball back to Dave after almost losing the ball to an aggressive Lave City player.

Dave trapped the ball as the player left Adolf and was heading toward him now and this time he wasn't alone.

He feigned shooting at the player heading directly toward him before passing the ball to Roland on the edge of the box.

"I think Dave Richards is becoming more confident with the ball in his feet," Jim said. "If it was before, he would grab that ball and throw it to any of his teammates closest to him but he's doing things like this in front of his goal post now."

"Yeah and don't forget that he successfully attempted a dribble on Felix Nunez right in front of his goalpost, it was nice seeing him do that to someone like Felix but that was a very risky attempt," Steve said. "What if his dribble had failed?"

"Yeah, that was very risky but I hope we can see more risk takings from this newfound Dave Richards," Jim said.

Edward was with the ball now and after checking and seeing that he couldn't go forward, he passed the ball to Roland who had left his wing to cover up a little in the middle.

Roland didn't waste any time sending the ball to Minino with a long ball after receiving it from Edward as all the other players seemed to be occupied with their markers.

Minino received the ball with a neat trap before getting past the player heading toward him with a nutmeg that he wasn't expecting in any way.

"Oh, that's neat from Minino," Jim said.

Minino now had a little bit of space to run down the wing and after running a bit, he passed the ball to Merino just before he could reach the eighteen-yard box.

Merino tried to get past the player marking him but the player didn't seem to be letting him through as everything he had tried had failed, he was lucky to still have the ball.

"Makimi is trying everything possible to make sure Merino doesn't get past him," Jim said.

Minino had gotten closer to collect the ball from Merino just before he almost lost it to Makimi.

"Minino comes to the rescue."

Minino lobbed the ball to Mateo who was making a run inside the box but before the ball could get to the left winger, a player rose high to block it with a header but his timing was a little bit off as the ball grazed past his head and fell off heading toward the sidelines.

Mateo quickly rushed toward the ball and got to it before it could roll past the sidelines.

He found Ferran making a run toward the edge of the box and quickly drilled the ball to him with a well-placed low pass.

"Mateo to Ferran."

Ferran got his foot on the ball and with a little pace, he got past the two players heading toward him to create enough space to shoot from outside the box.

"Ferran!!" Jim screamed as the midfield pulled his leg back and sent the ball flying toward the top left-hand corner with a powerful shot.

The goalkeeper dived toward the ball at the same time but there was no point in doing so as the ball banged on the crossbar and fell over for a goal kick.

"Oh, dear, it's hit the crossbar," Jim commented.

"That was so close Jim, I thought it was going in," Steve said.

Ferran stared at the particular spot of the crossbar for a while before letting out a deep sigh.

"That was really close," Dave muttered.

<If he had controlled his shot power that ball should have been in the back of the net but there's a chance that the goalkeeper could have saved it>

'Yeah, I've learned that power shots are harder to control but harder to save while shots with controlled shot power are easier to control but they are also easy for goalkeepers to save.' Dave replied.

<Exactly>

'But I think has good control over his power shots, people miss sometimes even with controlled shots.'

Roland had dispossessed Lave City's right winger of the ball after the player tried to take him on one on one.

"I wouldn't have tried that in a situation like that if I were Oveira," Jim said.

Roland quickly pushed the ball through the middle before passing it to Ferran who found Mateo making a run down the left wing.

He passed the ball to the winger who quickly got rid of the midfielder heading toward him with a dummy.

"That's nice from Mateo," Jim said.

For the second player, the winger pushed the ball toward the left wing before quickly pushing the ball back to his right foot to make his way down the middle.

"Mateo's still going."

The third player was deleted with a nutmeg as he zoomed past the player after that before he could lay a hand on him.

"He's still going, he's still going!" Jim exclaimed.

The player in front of him and the one behind him both ganged up on him and tried to pull him down and dispossess him off the ball, the guy behind him was literally pulling his shorts.

They succeeded in pulling the youngster down but he didn't let his legs leave the ball as he turned toward the goal post with the ball on his feet and quickly got back up on his feet.

"Unbelievable! He's up and through on goal now!" Jim exclaimed.

The striker was through on goal at the edge of the box now and all he needed to do was release the shot in the place that he knew was going to be tough for the goalkeeper to make a save from and it would be a goal.

****

Hope you enjoyed the chapter?

If I get up to a hundred golden tickets before the end of the month I will release six chapters on the first of December.