68 Back On The Bench

*Author Note*

I want to greatly APPOLOGIZE for my hiatus. Am very sorry and hope you all saw the new auxiliary chapter before chapter 1, I posted sometime ago explaining. Am still not back fully, but would try better to squeeze time to occasionally drop some chapters. These exams was the major reason I later decided on not going premium after I recieved an offer from webnovel as I knew I would have a span of time I would not be able to write. Hopefully my next book or this book later goes premium after my exams and when am back to writing. Thank you

*****

Training continued and on Friday's training the squad was announced and Tony was named on the bench for the away match against Sunderland on Sunday.

He knew it was due to his slight injury/fall in his last game and the coaches were just trying to reduce his game time and prevent him from playing too much at a high pace too soon to avoid a more serious injury from occuring.

John was named in the starting 11 and was very happy with himself. They went to the seminar room for the match preparations and arrangements from the coaching staffs.

After training Tony and John changed into their clothes and went to the arcade center. John played some games while Tony did some management stuffs while he also played some games when he was free as the customers were entering at a steady stream.

In the weekdays only few people had free time for things like playing games in the day and most would likely be free to come in the evenings so the arcade center opened late in the day on weekdays. But during the holidays, on weekends and public holidays it was opened very early and closed late in the evening due to everyone being free to relax.

Tony's attention wasn't needed at the center and due to him having a match in the academy, he needed to rest properly and prepare for the match. He and John stayed for some hours before they left early in the evening to go home and rest.

The staffs had his number and that of his brother, so if they needed his attention they could call him or his brother to come settle it.

*****

On Sunday Tony and his teammates prepared for the match to begin, as he settled down on the bench to watch his teammates and the Sunderland starting 11 begin the match formalities and then later kick off the match.

Both teams battled it out for some minutes before the game began to open up and Man City finally scored the first goal at the 23rd minute from a corner, as a Man City central defender jumped highest to head the ball into the net to open the scoring.

Both teams continued to battle it out for the rest of the first half, but the score line remained the same as Man City went into the locker rooms the more happier of the two teams with a 1:0 win.

After the half time break the game resumed as Sunderland hit Man City in a flurry of constant attacks until they finally successfully put the ball into the net at the 55th minute through an error from a Man City defender that gave the Sunderland striker an opportunity to face the City goalkeeper one on one.

The Sunderland striker didn't waste the opportunity as he successfully sent the ball past the keeper into the bottom corner of the net.

Both teams continued to fight it out for the win and even began making substitutions as Man City finally made there first substitution In the 66th minute.

They replaced there striker with another striker to reenergize the team and the attack.

Tony continued to watch from the bench as he continued to expect that he would be subbed in at anytime. He had been asked by the assistant manager to go warm up alongside some of his other teammates on the bench some minutes ago, as he continued to expect to be subbed in at anytime.

At the 72nd minute, Sunderland finally pulled ahead as they scored from a direct freekick from about 20 yards out, as there attacking midfielder successfully curled the ball into a corner of the net past the city goalkeeper.

Rose used her system scanner to check on the skill of the player that scored the goal. 'Wow!! He has a freekick ability of B+.' She mind communicated to Tony as he watched the Man City players quickly resume the game to find an equaliser.

Tony was excited at being able to join the match and maybe achieve the conditions to copy the free kick ability, as he continued to glance towards the coaches who were seated and standing in front of him in the bench area as they analysed and discussed somethings on the match.

The game continued as Man City who were now behind by a goal played with greater urgency. Tony saw that John who was still in the match was also struggling to break into the box for a clear cut chance, as anytime he had the ball and tried to break into the box he would be forced to pass the ball back or he would simply be tackled and dispossessed.

Sunderland where now more focused on defending their lead as they substituted in more defensive minded players to shore up the lead as Man City also made an additional substitution.

A defender was subbed out for a striker as they now adopted a more aggressive formation. Tony continued to watch the match as he also warmed up in the sidelines expecting to be called up anytime by the coaches to get into the match.

Man City continued to look for opportunities to force the goal as opportunities came and went but none was able to successfully get into the net, Until finally in the 80th minute they made there final substitution.

But unluckily for Tony it was the right winger that was replaced with another winger as they used all of there permitted substitutions for the match.

He could now only decide to sit down and continue to watch the match as he knew he wasn't going to be involved anymore in the match as Coach Taylor had decided to avoid any risk that could lead to him developing an injury.

City continued to attack for the remaining minutes and it was not until it was past the 90th minute and into the first minute of the three minutes of added time that John finally scored a goal to balance the score line.

The city players had been probing the Sunderland team continuously as they passed amongst themselves until they passed the ball down to John at the left wing outside the 18 yard box.

John recieved the ball and began running into the box to try and force an opportunity to score. He passed the ball back to a midfielder who quickly returned the ball back after John had silently run past a player.

John recieved the ball and saw that there was a defender in between him and the goalkeeper as some of the other Sunderland players also tried to close down on him more.

He decidedly took a decision to gamble as he had no clear option to pass and shot the ball towards the bottom right corner of the post.

Luckily for him, the defender managed to slightly hit the ball as it deflected into the left side of the net as the wrong footed goalkeeper could only watch as the ball went into the net for a goal for John.

Tony and the other city players on the pitch and outside all jumped up and hugged each other as the ball went into the net. It was clearly better to draw the match than to lose it.

The match resumed for a few minutes before the referee finally blew the whistle to end the game, as both teams drew the match by 2:2.