After slowly reviewing the footage, Jim and Steve could see that the ball hit Norman's arm before he sent it flying out of the area.
It didn't really look like it was intentional but the referee believed it was and was standing firm on his decision to award Zetoro United a penalty kick.
Every attempt from Unique FC players failed to sway even the suggestions to go check VAR fell to deaf ears and it didn't look like VAR was going to intervene.
"You see, Steve, that's why you always put your hands behind you when inside the box, now Zetoro United have a penalty kick that could bring them back on level terms with Unique FC unless Dave makes a miracle." Jim expressed.
The Zetoro United striker with the name Edward written above the number seven on the back of his jersey was standing over the ball in the penalty spot now with Dave in front of him and everyone else behind him outside of the box.
The referee carefully made sure that nothing was out of place and after that, he blew his whistle.
Dave slowly took in a deep breath before stumping his left foot on the floor.
Edward slowly took three steps backward before he slowly began to close up on the ball.
He ran between left and right in an attempt to confuse Dave, but in the end, he ended up blasting the ball over the bar.
"Oh, no, he missed it, that was their chance to level the scoreline and he sent it flying over the bar," Jim commented.
Edward had a mixed expression of shock and frustration on his face and Minino couldn't help but walk past him with an offensive face gesture.
Well, he was the one that started it when he was talking to the referee so the midfielder took his opportunity to get back at him.
"You can hear Unique FC fans getting their voices up again after that miss, they're glad their team is still leading, and to be honest who wouldn't be? And now who knows if Zetoro United will get another scoring opportunity like that again in this match." Steve expressed.
'I'm glad he spared me the pain of having to guess where he was going to place the ball.' Devon said subconsciously as he dropped the ball on the line inside the eighteen-yard box.
After that, he slowly took two steps backward before he quickly closed up on the ball and sent it flying in.
He kept his shot in check because he didn't want to send the ball flying all the way to the other goalpost.
The ball was sent flying toward Minino who brought the ball down with his chest and quickly pushed it to Martinez before the midfielder close to him could get to him.
"They'll want to get a second goal to prevent Zetoro United from leveling the game," Jim commented.
"Well, they've got things checked out in efficiency, it's just their effectiveness that needs a little bit of work," Steve said.
Unique FC were passing the ball around now looking for a way through and they seemed to have found one as Ferran sent the ball rolling to Fredinho who got hold of it and quickly pushed it to Carlos before making his way into the box.
Carlos quickly moved back with the ball to evade the player quickly heading toward him from behind
After that, he passed the ball to Minino who sent it flying over to Mateo with his first touch.
"Over to Mateo."
Mateo brought the ball down with his chest before he cut back to get past the right back there and send the ball flying into the box right where Fredinho wanted it.
The striker got his head on the ball before anyone else could and sent it flying toward the goalpost.
The goalkeeper was glued to a spot, but unfortunately, his effort ended up hitting the crossbar before going out for a goal kick.
"Oh, that should have gone in, and it would have looked easy," Jim commented.
"Just as I said, the efficiency is there big time, but the effectiveness still needs a lot of work."
The match dragged on till the ninetieth minute with none of the sides being able to come up with anything.
Unique FC were still dominating the game as expected but not exactly as they were doing in the first half.
That is to say that Dave wasn't really having things easy at the back as Zetoro United were able to get close enough to force out saves from him.
His teammates were quite wary of how they were attacking now but Dave was somewhat glad because now he could get to do some work in the match.
The closest Zetoro United came to scoring against them was a sliding kick from Dust inside the box which he was able to stop with his body.
If he had added some elevation to that ball then that would have ended differently.
The other chances came from outside the box and they were quite good as they were both fired toward the top right-hand corner by Edward but with ball magnet, Dave was able to catch both of them instead of sending them over the bar for a corner kick which he had no interest in dealing with.
Zetoro United's manager had already made some changes to his squad, and by the time they entered the seventy-fifth minute, Norman decided to make a few changes to his squad.
As expected, Frankie came on to replace Martinez, Merino came on to replace Carlos who asked to be substituted, and then, Pirlo came on to replace Aima.
The match took quite an interesting turn with those substitutions as Unique FC's midfield went back to bossing the game just like they have been doing in the first half.
They seemed to have slowed down a bit because Norman told Martinez to avoid venturing too far away from his post to avoid any mistakes and that made him to become less involved in the play, but Frankie was a box-to-box midfielder who had good defensive abilities while also being pretty good in attack plus he was a pretty fast player.
It turned out Mateo wasn't the one Zetoro United had to dread as they had someone man-marking the winger throughout the game, it was Frankie.
He was everywhere, intercepting, retrieving, defending, and passing.
"I don't know how this team has so many good midfielders but it's a good thing they do because that is where the core of their gameplay comes from," Jim commented.
"He should have gotten more playing time last season, I'm glad Norman discovered his potential and is putting him to good use this season," Steve commented.
Frankie had already been on the pitch for a little while but Zetoro United had already gone back to their ball drought condition.
The midfielder was with the ball now and just before Freyan could get to him, he passed the ball to Ferran before pushing forward a little to receive the ball back from Ferran.
He raced down the middle with the ball before he found Merino free on the right and sent the ball rolling to him.
The winger got hold of the ball, and just before the wingback there could get to him, he sent the ball rolling back to Frankie who immediately sent it flying over to Mateo.
"Over to Mateo, he's been unusually quiet for most of this second half," Jim commented.
The winger brought the ball down with his chest and feigned shooting toward the goalpost to startle the wing back marking him but that didn't work so he sent the ball rolling back to Ferran.
"Looks like he's not planning to go out of his way to do anything extraordinary today."
As soon as Jim said that, Mateo quickly moved down the middle near the edge of the box to collect the ball from Ferran.
He got past the player in front of him with a clumsy dribble and without even thinking twice about it, he fired the ball toward the goalpost.
"Oh, forget what I just said."
The goalkeeper was fast enough to dive toward the right and get his hand on the ball, but he didn't apply enough force to push it out as the ball ended up hitting the crossbar.
It was now in the air and up for grabs and Merino wasn't going to let an opportunity like this pass him by.
He quickly pushed past the player right in front of him to get his head on the ball and even though the goalkeeper had rushed toward the area at that time, he wasn't able to stop it as the ball smashed past his left hand before falling into the goalpost.
"It's in! And that's Merino at the end of it!" Jim exclaimed.
"I didn't think he would be able to get to that because his path was blocked but I guess he's stronger than I think," Steve commented.
Merino screamed as loud as he could as soon as he got up from the and raced to the sidelines to do a full body slide.
"Well, at this point, you could either say things just got tougher for Zetoro United or it's all over," Jim said.
"I'll take the latter," Steve remarked.
