Unlimited Potential System-Chapter 77: Dropping the Fucker?

The next few minutes of the match were hell for the Monaco players. Since they had managed to restore their two-goal cushion and the match was already in its closing stages, Paris Saint Germain decided to waste time.

It was one thing if Monaco were playing against a weaker team using the delay tactic, but it was a completely different thing now that they were playing against a stronger team who would have had a lot more possession even if the two teams were going pound for pound. Now they had to endure long, meaningless possession spells from the reigning champions.

84’

After what felt like an eternity for the Monaco players on the pitch, they finally regained possession and started moving to try and score a goal. There was only one small problem with that course of action though.

It was that the Paris Saint Germain players, as soon as they lost the ball, regrouped and formed a low block defensive shape. Tyler, who was out on the right flank, almost slapped his forehead as soon as he saw this.

Adi Hutter, who was out on the touchline, glanced briefly in Luis Enrique’s direction and nodded somewhat. His eyes even shone with admiration. All of Europe were praising him for his beautiful attacking football, but they didn’t know that he was so good at setting up low blocks.

Lamine Camara passed the ball from the midfield to the right where Vanderson was. The Brazilian right back took a couple of touches with the ball, driving it forward before laying it off to Tyler, who was slightly in front of him.

Tyler got the ball and drove forward before finding himself one on one with Nuno Mendes. Tyler paused and raised his leg, trying to figure out the best course of action. Eventually, he feinted a run towards the inside before making a run on the outside.

It was a good move from Tyler, but ultimately his efforts were futile. Nuno Mendes easily kept up with him, forcing the teenager to cut back and send a pass back to Vanderson, who teased a cross into the crowded box before recycling possession.

The next few minutes of the match passed like that. It was an agonizing watch for the fans in the stadium, but the home crowd knew that even if it was ugly, it was something that had to be done to see out the win. A necessary evil.

87’

As the end of the match drew closer, the Monaco players started to grow a little bit more desperate. Adi Hutter was yelling a lot on the touchline, to the referees and anyone who would listen, about Paris Saint Germain’s time wasting. In fact, his "passion" got him a yellow card and forced him to calm down.

Monaco were enjoying quite a long spell of possession of the ball. Unfortunately, it wasn’t like they could do anything with it. They just kept passing the ball around, looking for an opening that never came.

Eventually the ball got back to Tyler, and instead of passing it back like everyone expected in an attempt to try and find an opening, he dribbled forward and squared up against his adversary for the night, Nuno Mendes.

Fuck this tiki-taka approach. If we can’t find an opening, I’ll just have to create one

The winger and fullback stood in silence for a couple of seconds before Nuno Mendes suddenly reacted and stretched his leg towards the ball. Tyler seemed to have anticipated the movement and used his right foot to kick the ball right before sharply cutting it inside, causing the ball to go in between Nuno Mendes’ legs. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Tyler then ran after the loose ball, and a small smile appeared on his face as his legs latched onto it.

Huh? Who knew it’d be so easy to get past that fu-

Before Tyler could complete that train of thought, he felt something jam into him from behind. The suddenness of the force as well as the magnitude of it caused him to go stumbling down onto the floor and slide quite a bit.

As soon as he realized what had happened, Tyler raised his hand while he was on the floor and stared at the referee, who just shrugged and signified a play on.

"Dammit," Tyler muttered under his breath.

He almost started thrashing about on the ground but forced himself to remain calm. Throughout his football career, he had faced a lot of tough opponents, but none of them compared to the behemoth that was standing in his way this time around.

Even with his injury, which didn’t exactly make him the best player, he still didn’t recall a match where he was just utterly hopeless like he was now. Aside from when he played the one-two with Vanderson, he didn’t think he was able to get past Nuno Mendes all night.

In the end, Tyler swallowed the remaining profane words that were about to spill out of his mouth and jogged back onto the pitch to help his teammates recover possession.

After that incident, the game essentially became a one on one contest between Tyler and Nuno Mendes. Every single time Tyler got on the ball, he would start driving forward fearlessly until he was met with the usual obstacle, and each time he would lose the ball. But he didn’t give up.

Even if the player opposite him was that much better than him, Tyler didn’t believe that he could keep him under control ten times out of ten. In other words, Tyler was just waiting for his moment, like the patient man that he was.

Eventually his moment did come.

For the umpteenth time in the match, Tyler squared off against Nuno Mendes. The two of them squared off again, staring at each other for a couple of seconds before Nuno Mendes stretched out his leg again, and then they started.

Tyler used an elastico once again to get the ball between Nuno Mendes’ legs. This time, though, the ball went through to the inside of the penalty box. Tyler latched onto the loose ball and looked as if he was trying to position himself to shoot.

Nuno Mendes had already caught up with him and then stretched out his leg to block the shot. Unfortunately, the shot never came. Tyler did a fake and then moved as if he was going to rush onto the inside again, but instead moved onto the outside and ran down the width with the ball on his right foot.

After a couple of steps, Tyler saw that he was closed in by the sheer number of players inside the box and decided to go with the only course of action that he could perform at that moment. He shot the ball.

He didn’t even know what happened after he shot the ball. Someone collided with him from the side, so he lost balance and fell on the ground. He didn’t get to watch the ball leave his leg, head for the near post, take a deflection off one of the outstretched legs of Marquinhos, one of the center backs inside the box, wrong-foot Donnarumma, and plant itself at the other side of the goal before flying into the virtually empty net.

All he knew was that he shot, then fell to the ground, and by the time he was up, his teammates rushed to him and patted his back, some of them hugging and high-fiving him.

If only that goal had been the equalizer, then there might have been a much longer celebration, but they still needed to score the equalizer, so after a brief acknowledgement of the goal, they got the ball and hurriedly headed back to the center of the pitch.

Folarin Balogun stood over the ball, and as the referee blew his whistle, he passed it to his teammate, and they were about to go on another attack, only to stop as soon as they heard two subsequent whistling sounds.

The match was over.

PSG 3 - 2 AS Monaco.