Mateo missing that penalty was a big relief for S.S. Lazio, there would have certainly been a drop in morale to a certain level if that ball had gone in.????????????????????????????????.????????????
Their coach was screaming from the sidelines now, urging them to take things seriously.
"That penalty miss may be something that might come back to haunt them later, that's his first penalty miss of the season having only taken five," Jim commented.
"It may come back to haunt them, but Lazio will have to be sleek to make that happen and so far, they haven't really done anything crazy to upset the home team, they may still have a few more cards up their sleeves so let's wait and see." Steve articulated.
The match continued with Lazio moving the ball around trying to outsmart Unique FC and then hit them where it hurts.
By this time in their last match, they had already tried a lot of shots which ended up failing.
This time, they were being conservative and putting what they learned from their first match against the Bilbeth Premier League side.
It was obvious now that scoring with those long-range shots was something they could not really count on, especially with Dave in the goalpost so they had to try and be tactical this one to try and see if they could get revenge for the trashing they received last time.
Zahid got hold of the ball on the right, and just before Mateo could close up on him, he sent the ball rolling to the other attacking midfielder who was moving down the middle now.
He had the name Alfred written above the number twenty-one on the back of his jersey, and as soon as he got his foot on the ball, he sent it flying over to Andrea to avoid having to deal with Martinez.
"Over to Andrea."
Andrea slowly moved toward Roland to try and see if he could disorient him with his rapid leg movements over the ball, but it didn't look like it was going to work on the left back so he had to push the ball back to Zahid.
He knew from the last match that carelessly trying to body his way through would most likely result in him losing the ball so, better safe than sorry.
As soon as Zahid got his foot on the ball, he tried to move down the middle with it, but his path was immediately blocked by Adolf and Martinez was also coming from the side.
He could have lost the ball there, but he was fast enough to send it rolling to the left for the defensive midfielder there to get his foot on it.
The player pushed the ball forward a little before he sent it flying into the box toward the right.
"Looks like he's going for the kill here."
Andrea quickly dragged his way past Roland to get his head on the ball, but due to the pressure from Roland being right on him, he ended up sending the ball over the bar for a goal kick.
"And that has flown right over the bar," Steve commented.
"Roland did pretty well in preventing him from getting a good header on that, that could have been way more than a ball just flying over the bar."
The match continued with both sides trying to get that opener, but so far that wasn't really working out well for them.
Unique FC had more ball possession but it wasn't like they were dominating the game because they had only five more ball possession percentage than Lazio.
However, one thing was pretty clear, their chances were better than the ones from Lazio but their finishing was still a bit shaky.
They were the ones with the ball but they were in their own half of the pitch after a failed attempt to take Lazio by surprise.
The match had just entered the thirty-eight minute now as Mateo evaded Zahid with a neat body feint before pushing the ball to Ferran who quickly pushed forward a little with it before laying it off to Minino.
"Minino."
The midfielder had a player quickly heading toward him from behind and instead of trying to move forward to prevent the player from getting close to him, he paused and quickly moved out of the way.
The defensive midfielder didn't turn on his brakes on time, and while he was still trying to stop, Minino quickly dashed past him before sending the ball to Merino who had to send it back to him because he wasn't in a really good position.
Minino had to send the ball back to Martinez who quickly sent it flying over to Mateo.
Mateo brought down the ball with his chest and because he had nobody on him at the moment, he was able to race down the middle until one of the midfielders dashed in from the side to try and stop him but Mateo was fast enough to chip the ball over him before jumping over him himself.
After getting past the player, he played a quick one-two with Ferran at the edge of the box before getting into the box to receive the ball from the midfielder.
Ferran had a player sliding toward him right at that time and Mateo had a defender trying to reach him, but Ferran was able to chip the ball over to him right inside the box.
The winger brought the ball down neatly and without hesitation fired it right through the legs of the player in front of him to get it to the goalpost.
The ball was sent flying toward the right side with a little bit of elevation but it didn't have that much shot power to it so Jorge was able to get to it right on time to get both of his gloves on it, it was a pretty neat catch.
"Nice save from Jorge."I think you should take a look at
"He should have added a little bit more shot power to that."
The goalkeeper wanted to start a counterattack but it didn't look like that was going to work because the defenders and also Martinez had already covered the spaces left on their side so there was no space for a counterattack.
He threw the ball toward Zahid who got hold of it and quickly pushed forward down the wing with it.
He was about to run into Mateo when he caught sight of Alfred on the right and quickly sent the ball rolling to him.
"Alfred."
The away team passed the ball around for a while until Zahid decided to make a move.
He ran through the middle to receive the ball from the defensive midfielder on the left and just before Martinez could get to him, he sent the ball in toward Carrigher with a backheel pass.
Carrigher had Adolf to deal with but he would rather not and just sent the ball rolling toward Andrea.
Andrea raced toward the edge of the box and got to it before Roland could.
Everyone including Dave thought he was going to shoot but the winger shocked them all by sending the ball in toward the box with a low pass.
Alfred beat everyone to get his leg on the ball, and even before Dave could react, the ball had been sent off toward his goalpost.
He wasn't able to make a full dive on time, but that wasn't a problem as the ball ended up hitting the post before rolling out for a goal kick.
"Oh, that was so close, that could have been a great goal for Lazio to open the scoreline but it looks like it was not meant to be." Jim dictated.
'I wouldn't have been able to save that if it had been on the right path.' Dave said subconsciously as he slowly got up from the floor.
<Yeah, that's part of football, a goalkeeper can't save everything, and sometimes the post comes through for them>
'Yeah, that's right, but why am I only getting this feeling in this match?'
<Hey, just stay calm nothing's going to go wrong if your team sticks together>
'I wasn't overreacting.'
<You sure about that?>
The match had just hit the forty-fifth minute and right at that time, Lazio FC won a free kick twenty-five yards away from Unique FC's goalpost.
Andrea was standing over the ball now as the official with the board raised it to show that there was going to be just three minutes of added time.
"A free kick from a pretty good spot, Andrea's second attempt tonight, will he be able to see this one through?"
Unique FC had their four-man wall right at the edge of the box with everyone else running around inside and around the box.
After making sure that everything was ready, the referee blew his whistle and now it was over to Andrea.
He took in a deep breath before slowly taking two steps backward.
After that, he quickly closed up on the ball and fired it toward the goalpost with a neat curl.
The ball was sent flying toward the right as Dave dived toward it.
He thought he timed it correctly, but his mind ended up missing it by a few inches, the goalkeeper couldn't believe his eyes.
That could have been the moment, but the ball ended up hitting the crossbar before flying over the bar.
There was a large gasp from the fans after witnessing that free kick, that could have been such a good goal.
"He came closer this time, should have kept it in a bit more."
While the fans and his teammates were glad that the ball didn't go in, Dave was still on the floor with a certain thought going through his mind.
'How did I miss that?'
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