My Goalkeeping System

432  Chill First Half

That strike from Dave forced out quite a loud gasp from the fans, especially the away fans who had never seen the goalkeeper attempt something like this before.

"That was a pretty close call from Jeremy, Dave just forgot about everything and decided to try his luck from the goalpost, what a goal that would have been?" Jim commented.

"Yeah, what a goal that would have been. Jeremy did well to keep that out, but now they have a corner kick to deal with."

Roland was standing over the ball now waiting for the referee's whistle as the players from both teams ran around inside the box.

After making sure that everything was ready, the referee blew his whistle, and as soon as Roland heard it, he slowly took two steps backward before he quickly closed up on the ball and sent it flying in.

There were a lot of players in the area getting ready to either send the ball away or attempt to send it into the goalpost.

One of the defenders in the area ended up nodding the ball back, but the ball ended up falling toward Pirlo who brought it down with his chest, and without hesitation, fired it toward the goalpost.

"Pirlo!"

Jeremy was glued to a spot as the ball flew directly toward the top right-hand side of the goalpost and ended up hitting the crossbar before flying over for a goal kick.

"Oh, that was so close!"

After watching his effort go to waste like that, Pirlo shook his head with both of his hands on his waist before quickly running back to his position.

"That's two missed chances from Unique FC."

Villarreal CF were on edge right from the time Dave fired that shot from his goalpost, and now they could finally catch their breath a little.

"Let's see how the Spanish side are going to react."

Villarreal knew they had to be really careful to beat Unique FC because any little mistake and they would be doomed.

This was a very important match for them so getting doomed was not an option.

Antonio received the ball right down the middle of the midfield, and just before Minino could get to him, he pushed it to the other midfielder on his left who immediately sent it rolling back toward one of the defenders, the left back to be precise.

"They're doing pretty well in keeping the ball away from Unique FC."

All it took to ruin that was one sloppy pass to the right attacking midfielder.

Mateo quickly cut in from the side to steal the ball while it was still in motion and just before anyone could do anything to stop him, he sent the ball rolling to Fredinho.

"Over to Fredinho, this could be their moment!"

Fredinho put the ball right through the center-back's legs before quickly running past him to get into the box, and just before the goalkeeper could get to him, he chipped the ball right over him and into the goalpost.

"And he makes no mistake!"

The fans immediately burst into cheers of jubilation as the striker quickly raised toward the sideline with Mateo right on his trail.

"They have proven time without number that they are the best this group has to offer, a terrible mistake from Villarreal and they got properly punished for it." Jim expressed.

The voices of the players were now going up in front of the fans and Minino was gesturing to the fans to keep cheering.

"They have now started the journey to their sixth Europa Conference League group stage win, and if they manage to pull this off, they'll join West Ham United as the only teams to pull this off." Jim articulated.

"It's quite ironic that that same West Ham United are on the verge of losing their sixth group stage game, they really didn't come prepared this season." Steve expressed.

The match continued with West Ham United trying to find an opportunity to take advantage of their opponents, but so far nothing was working for them.

Unique FC were doing pretty well in keeping them contained.

Antonio got the ball back from Fraser after he almost lost it to Roland.

Martinez quickly closed up on the midfielder as soon as he got his foot on the ball, but before he could get close enough to him, he pushed the ball to Conrad who immediately sent it rolling to Fraser before making a quick run into the box.

Fraser got his foot on the ball and quickly cut down through the middle to avoid Roland.

As soon as he got away from Roland just for a few seconds, he sent the ball flying into the box toward Conrad.

Conrad got away from Conrad to get his head on the ball, but unfortunately, his effort was sent flying over the bar.

"Oh, that could have been something!"

The striker didn't think much of that as he slowly shook his head before he began to jog back toward his size.

The match continued till the fortieth minute with neither side being able to find the back of the net, but Villarreal were slowly starting to pick themselves up.

For the first thirty minutes of the match, they struggled to get off any good shots, but from that point onward, they started to make some impact against the home side.

Fraser started to cooperate pretty well with Fabinho, the attacking midfielder on the right to get past Roland and they managed to create some pretty good chances from their exploits down that right wing, but most of them weren't that much trouble for Dave.

The only one that came really close to going in was a strike from Antonio just from the edge of the box.

That was quite the slippery shot because the midfielder fired it toward the bottom left side of the goalpost with no elevation at all.

Dave was just able to get to it in the nick of time with the tip of his gloves.

The ball ended up hitting the post, and just before it could move any further, he covered it with his whole body.

It was quite ironic how the Spanish side ended up attempting more shots than their opponents in just a short while.

Well, that was because Unique FC just as always were being really conservative.

After that goal from Fredinho, they only attempted four more shots, but none of those really came close to going so they're really not worth mentioning.

Villarreal tried their best to get that equalizer before the halftime break but they failed to achieve that as the referee blew his whistle twice to finally bring the first half to an end.

"There's the whistle, the first half is done and dusted with Unique FC still with the lead," Steve commented

"Well, that was a pretty balanced first half, I expected Unique FC to be a bit more aggressive but I guess it makes sense that they want to take things easy. I just wonder how the second half will play out."

With the players matching out of the pitch, the statistics board showed the summary of how the first half played out.

Unique FC had sixty-one percent ball possession while Villarreal had thirty-nine, and as for shots, the home side had seven with just three being on target while the away side had twelve shots with just three being on target.

There were no cards which meant that both teams have kept it clean so far, but there was a chance that the second half was going to be a whole different case.

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