My Goalkeeping System

There was a reason why Dave tagged the quest he had just received as a hard quest and that was because of the way things had been with him and Felix whenever they met.

Dave had only become Unique FC's number one last season after their former goalkeeper, during that season was the goalkeeper met Felix twice during the season and during those matches, the striker had put seven goals past the goalkeeper, scoring four goals in their first meeting and humiliating the goalkeeper in your process of scoring some of those goals.

They had already met in the home leg this season and during that match in which Spree City trashed Unique FC four goals to one, Felix Nunez had managed to put two goals past him.

<Well, you're different now, you can certainly stop him now>

'I know but...'

<But what?>

'Felix is a different breed of striker, his shots are really confusing sometimes.'

<Then find the pattern to the confusing shots and decipher it>

'It's easy for you to say.'

<It's easy for me to say because it's that easy, I won't tell you anything meaningless>

The players trained on the pitch with about two hours and thirty minutes left before the match began.

Right now, Merino was playing long balls toward the goalkeeper's goalpost and he was easily hitting them out and knocking them over the bar.

"Catch this one on the top right-hand corner," Merino said before racing toward the ball standing a little distance away from him.

Dave dived toward the left side because he thought Merino was trying to trick him but the winger had placed the ball in the top right-hand corner just like he said.

<Well, he did succeed in tricking you, without even trying>

"Wow, you thought I was trying to trick you," Merino said, moving closer to him.

"Well, not everyone tells me where they are going to play the ball before playing it," Dave said slowly getting up from the floor.

"Hey, Dave, think fast!"

He heard Mateo's voice and quickly raised his gaze to see a ball flying toward him from above.

The ball wasn't moving with much power so it was an easy catch for the goalkeeper.

With forty-five minutes left before the match began, the players began to make their way back to the dressing room to get ready for the match.

Norman had already educated them on the match tactics and selected his starting eleven and one of the things that were giving Dave confidence going into this match was the fact that both Mateo and Ferran were starting the match.

"I still don't get why coach is starting Jonas ahead of Roland after all the mistakes he made in our last two matches, mistakes that Roland came in to fix," Mateo muttered to Dave as he tied the lace on his red boots.

"Well, maybe he wants him to redeem himself in this match," Dave said.

"And he couldn't do that against Litno FC?" Mateo said. "I just hope he doesn't turn into a ghost anytime Kaleno approaches him." He added before turning his gaze to the left back who was tying up his laces just like he was doing.

With twenty minutes left before the match kicked off, the players from both teams matched into the pitch as applause rang and cheers rang in the stadium from the fans from both sides.

"Welcome to our viewers from all around the world," Jim said. "It's your regular host Jim Waterson and joining me here to provide expert opinions and analysis as co-commentator will be Mr. Steve Jefferson."

"Thank you, Jim, it is really great to be back after missing out on a few matches."

Unique FC players were putting on their second away Jersey which was a lemon-colored kit with a mix of black and orange stripes and just black shorts. For Dave, it was just a lemon-colored kit.

Spree City players on the other hand were putting on light blue kits while their goalkeeper was putting on a red kit.

Unique FC were playing the four-three-three formation as always with Mateo Fred and Merino leading the attack.

Edward, Ferran, and Minino in midfield, and then Jonas, Aima, Adolf, and Norman in defense.

Spree City were playing the four-four-two formation with Felix and Kaleno leading their attack.

"Unique FC had lost all their matches against Spree City for the past seasons now, can this be the match that they are finally going to break Spree City's streak on them?" Jim said.

"Well, Unique FC has been in wonderful form so far and with Dave Richards starting to become something, they are starting to look a bit dangerous," Steve said.

"So you're saying that there's a chance that they could beat Spree City," Jim said.

"Yeah, there's a chance but you can't rule out what Spree City can do, they are one of the teams who are in good form alongside Unique FC as of last week so my best bet on this match is going to be a draw."

"A draw? Well, let's watch and see." Jim said.

Felix was standing over the ball in the kick-off spot waiting for the referee's whistle and as soon as the whistle was blown, he passed the ball to the player closest to him.

"The match has kicked off now and we are set for another ninety minutes of entertaining football this season," Jim said.

Someone who had been studying both teams' styles of play since the start of the season would notice that Spree City was just a better version of Unique FC.

They loved to keep the ball way more than the oranges and they could easily convert defense to attack.

The only team that Unique FC always ended up having less ball possession against, that's Spree City.

Right now they were passing the ball around trying to find an opening to strike while Unique FC players were trying everything they could to get possession of the ball.

"Felix Nunez is the player with the most goals against Dave Richards, the striker has recorded nine goals against him in just three matches and he may extend that record tonight," Jim said.

"Something I'm going to try my best to stop from happening," Dave muttered before joining his hands together.

A through pass had been played to Kaleno but before the ball could get to him, Adolf swooshed in from behind.

"Oh, that's a clever interception from Adolf," Jim commented.

The center-back wanted to start up an attack while their opponents were a bit unsettled and quickly passed the ball to Edward.

The player behind Edward had already anticipated that he was going to pass the ball to him and that was why he quickly raced to the midfielder before the ball got to him.

There was no space for him to turn or move with the ball as the player was trying to muscle him off the ball so he decided to pass it to Ferran but the pressure being put on him now had caused the pass to come off as a sloppy one which was easily stolen by another Spree City player.

"That wasn't a good pass," Steve said.

"No, it wasn't even close."

The player quickly passed the ball to the right Midfielder who didn't waste time to roll it to Kaleno who was racing toward Jonas.

Jonas looked really determined to shut him out but the winger wasn't even planning on getting past him as he quickly lobbed it into the box for Felix who was racing in there with Aima and Adolf.

"Oh, this looks promising."

The ball flew right past Adolf to Felix's feet and without trying to do anything special, the striker pushed the ball toward the goalpost.

Dave was glued to the spot as the ball rolled past him into the net from the bottom right-hand corner.

"It's a goal! It's a goal! Spree United has gotten the opener, Felix Nunez extends his goal record against Dave Richards and Unique FC as a team."

Felix didn't do that much of a celebration as he just pointed both of his fingers upstairs while his teammates rushed to him.

Dave had a devastated look on his face and he had turned his gaze down now with his hands on his waist.

'I couldn't even keep up the quest for at least five minutes.' He said subconsciously as he stared at his system screen expecting that quest failed message to appear anytime soon, but after a minute nothing popped up.

'What's going on Catherine?' He asked. 'Felix just put the ball past me.'

<Why don't you raise your head and see for yourself>

"Huh?" He muttered as he raised his head to see that about four Spree City players were gathered around the referee.

"I don't know what they are trying to convince him for because the linesman had his flag up there," Steve said.

"To go check VAR, that's certainly what they are asking him to do," Jim said.

The referee didn't seem to have listened to anything the players said as he blew his whistle and pointed toward the goalpost before pointing toward Spree City's side.

"It's official, that goal won't count," Jim said.

"Yes," Dave said with an excited tone to his voice.

<I know it's not exactly a second chance but you should see it as that and be more careful now>

"Second chance," Dave muttered.

****

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.