Fantasy Football-Chapter 33: Comeback 2.

The players of Strider’s FC could hardly believe their eyes; they couldn’t explain or understand where things had gone wrong.

However, the loud celebration of the Dark Elite players near the flag was enough to tell them they had not only lost the lead, however it now looked like they were about to suffer a loss to a team playing underground football for the first time.

They just couldn’t bring themselves to accept that, especially when they reminisced about how this very first match had been played.

“We can do this, boys. Don’t let their momentum bring you down, we still have about 15 minutes to make this right,” the Strider’s FC keeper said. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

It turned out he was also their captain, hearing him speak like that made them gather themselves and return to position, this time looking more determined than ever.

With their eyes now holding a hard shine, however, Mystic , who was watching all of this from the dugout, couldn’t help smirking.

As he believed that no matter what Strider’s FC wanted to do now, the game wasn’t level anymore; and his players had the morale to go for another goal after getting a taste of what they were capable of against a team that wasn’t overly above them like the Bariga FC.

The second reason he felt it was too late was that, even though Strider’s FC hadn’t moved the ball for a couple of minutes, his team was still in better condition overall, as they still made them move so they didn’t focus on recovering, and the reasons why the Dark Elitez were still at top position was because,

Number one, they had better endurance stats due to the training Mystic had put them through.

Number two, in the first few minutes Strider’s FC burned a lot of energy trying to impose themselves on his team’s psyche—thinking, since this was their first time the Dark Elitez boys were facing such tactics they would break easily and concede more goals when they first entered.

However they made a mistake thinking like that, and they paid for it with two goals in return.

“Lambert, control the middle and look for Mojo and Buchi,” Mystic said to Lambert, who just nodded.

And with that, play restarted for the final fifteen minutes.

The Striders FC opened with their long-ball tactic again; however, unlike last time, when all of the Dark Elites players sat deep and defended this time Tasty, Bhola, and Buchi surged forward to force an error from the Strider’s FC defenders that were holding the last line, while Lambert, Jezzy Vingz, and Mojo trailed in the middle to contain Striders’ four midfielders.

Seeing Tasty charging at him, the center-back was forced into a back pass, as he knew he couldn’t match Tasty one on one, but Tasty didn’t stop because of that as he still chased the ball.

Causing the keeper to fidget after seeing this, as he launched the ball long into Dark Elites’ half, Into the place one of their two strikers was waiting, as he rose and nodded it on into his partner’s path,

The second striker, who is sporting a Mohawk, suddenly had a bad feeling seeing how easily it was going, and that was because none of the Dark Elites defenders had even bothered to jump and contest the header with the guy that nodded the ball to him.

But he simply shrugged it off, assuming they were simply tired, but as the mohawked striker moved forward to meet the pass, a shadow flashed between him and the ball.

Okududu, one of the two Dark Elites’ center-backs, had read it and stole the second ball.

Mystic’s instruction was simple: attack the second balls.

He had said this because the Striders’ two strikers thrive on long balls, so the defenders of Dark Elitez were waiting for the knockdown while conserving stamina , which increased the odds of them winning possession.

With the first part executed, Okududu slipped it to Lambert to launch the counter for the Dark Elites.

Without fuss, Lambert popped it to the side, then twisted and burst into space, as if he already knew a runner was closing in from behind him , with such a pass into space it became hard for the midfielder to track back fast enough to intercept the ball, because of that he hesitated to close in on Jezzy, who had received the pass on the opposite flank.

Fortunately, Striders FC’s No. 8 who was covering for him also read the Dark Elites’ pattern and tried to close Jezzy down just as the ball rolled to him.

But Jezzy simply nudged it with his left on first touch, slipping the ball between his legs.

That nutmeg caught No. 8 off guard, and the ball ran to Lambert, who juggled through to complete a one-two with Vingz.

As it hit Lambert’s feet again, he instantly looped it toward the right wing.

That switch caused confusion between the ranks of the Strider’s FC defenders, because Mojo had been the eccentric outlet for the Dark Elitez, and Lambert had found him earlier for the first goal , so the Striders defenders had moved slightly left to block him with hopes to intercept and block fast enough if the ball was getting to him again this time.

Which left Oyebuchi (Omo Igbo) free to advance, and Lambert didn’t disappoint, having shaken his marker with the one-two with Jezzy, he’d already locked onto Oyebuchi’s run.

So when the ball returned to his feet, he scooped it with his right into the space that had opened, arcing it toward Oyebuchi.

And Oyebuchi drove on, cushioning it with his chest., as one of the center-back rushed to close him and force an error, but Buchi had been eager to show his skill since and he decided this was the moment.

Before it even touched the ground, he twisted and struck the ball through the outside of his right boot, as he unleashed a trivela, toward Tasty who was at the far side inside the box

The crowd fell silent as tension spiked, the other center-back who had stuck to Tasty yanked hard at his shirt to throw him off, but Tasty’s eyes never left the swirling ball.

Without hesitation, he angled his header, guiding it toward the far right post, though the Striders FC keeper followed it and even was able to use his fingertip to touch the ball, however he still couldn’t keep it out.

“Goal!!!”

The commentator shouted at the top of his voice as Tasty sprinted toward the corner arc, finishing with a slide in celebration while the rest of his teammates piled on him.

–

“Yes, get in, jor!” Viper yelled, unable to contain himself, as he and Alfred shook hands in celebration, surprised at how quickly the goals had come.

One thing was clear: even Viper who’d thought a new team wouldn’t perform this well on their first underground match was dumbfounded by how things had turned.

He’d been skeptical about the Dark Elites and didn’t feel right backing Striders FC against Mystic’s group of young players.

But after hearing Mystic’s analytical breakdown, he was convinced enough to place a bet too on them.

Yet when Striders scored first, his doubts rushed back and he wished he’d stuck to his initial belief by betting on them, however it wasn’t even up to two minutes when the Dark Elites proved him wrong by equalizing.

That first goal from Tasty fired him up, then came the second, Bhola scored and he started to feel a warm sweetness bloom in his chest just from watching them.

Now Tasty had buried another with just ten minutes left.

Even a clueless spectator could tell the Dark Elites were on their way

to victory, they’d seized the tempo and forced Striders FC to play at their pace.