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Chapter 208: Petty Thoughts

He had barely been active for half a season and despite having scored quite a bit and performed quite well, 100 million Euros was a bit too much for him to stomach as a price tag on his name.

Forget whether the numbers in the football world were very inflated these days because even then it didn’t make sense.

After all, everyone who had such a price tag put on their heads were people who had performed exceptionally for at least 2 seasons, otherwise one wouldn’t hear such numbers.

Even Cristiano Ronaldo back in his day was only just about 80 million Euros from Manchester United to Real Madrid and that was after winning literally everything that could be won as well as breaking countless records in that one season.

To have a higher price than Ronaldo when he had not achieved even a quarter of what Ronaldo had achieved to be named that price didn’t sit well with Jason at all, but what the hell was this?

“I know that I didn’t say I wanted to leave but what the hell?”

“They could have at least given me a heads up if they were going to pull off something like this,” Jason muttered in annoyance.

Contrary to what the club was probably thinking, he wasn’t happy at seeing such big numbers behind his name yet as it was quite annoying.

To him and to everyone else, it was obvious that Porto wasn’t willing to sell him, but had still put an unreasonable price tag on his head just in case, meaning if there was a team that was still willing to pay that much for him, then they wouldn’t mind selling him off.

Of course, Jason wouldn’t resist going to a team that could fork out over 100 million Euros for him because they were probably a better team than Porto, but the point was that the chances of that happening were nigh impossible due to the current financial state of most big European clubs.

Clubs like Barcelona, Juventus, and a few others were already having problems paying salaries to their players so there was no way they would willingly throw out that money to buy him, and the other big teams were probably not much better financially and would avoid big spending unless they had already been planning to spend such a large amount of money and the funds were already prepared.

As Jason had only become active halfway through the season, he was probably not a major target of any big club yet, and even if he was, they wouldn’t have been able to prepare a separate hundred million for the acquisition of his services due to COVID.

Even if they had the money, they’d have to give up on other plans to focus on buying him and he didn’t think that would happen.

All that was by the side, the real reason why he was annoyed was because of the extreme height of his price tag.

Players were like auction items and as long as they performed better and were still young, their prices only went higher and never lower, but now that he was stuck with a starting bid of 100 million.

If he kept performing like he was, which of course he planned to do and even go beyond, then his price would only rise.

What was he supposed to do with such a stupidly high price that could only be paid for by those Oil country teams, or maybe China or America?

He wasn’t planning to make his legend in a team like Al Hilal… no offense to the Saudi Clubs of course.

He wanted top-notch European football.

Of course, the price thing could be easily sorted out later, but it was still annoying for such a situation to rise up without him being informed or anything.

The club management was always doing too much.

It was no surprise for him to be treated like a commodity because the club was inherently a business, but sometimes it was more annoying than usual and this was one of those times.

‘Now, I’m definitely not staying in Porto past next season,’ Jason thought to himself pettily.

It was a very childish decision, but he felt like he was justified because if the club management was going to make such a big decision about him, then the least they could do was tell him about it or ask for his opinion, but instead, they had gone ahead and done whatever they wanted.

If they could do whatever they wanted, then he might as well do whatever he wanted.

‘Maybe I should not even resign a contract with them and just leave on a free transfer,’ An even pettier thought popped up in his head as he got back to his meal.

Throughout his meal time, different petty actions to get back at the club popped up in his mind, but after he finished eating, he put all his thoughts aside and began getting ready to leave for the training center as the more important thing to him now was his preparation for the upcoming Taca de Portugal final against Benfica.

After the finals, the team would then head to Germany for the continuation of the Europa League which had been scheduled to be held in stadiums located across Germany due to the risk of constant international travelling.

It was going to be very busy from now on and Jason was very pumped up about the upcoming games.

He would need to give his all in all the upcoming games as a loss would be rewarded with instant elimination and a lost trophy.

Those kinds of games where there was no way back were the kinds of games that interested Jason the most as they always got his blood pumping differently.

Quickly taking care of the dishes, Jason ran to grab his sports bag after glancing at the clock and seeing that he was already running late.

Jumping out of his house and barely locking the door, Jason jumped into his car and burst out of the driveway as fast as the speed limit would allow him.

**1st August 2020**

The Porto and Benfica teams had arrived as early as 5 pm at the Estadio Cidade de Coimbra which would be the venue for the Taca de Portugal final.

The match was actually scheduled to begin at 8:45 pm which was still over three hours away, but the teams still arrived early because, despite the lack of fans at the stadium, there was still a lot to be done before the final match.

Of course, neither of the teams began any pre-match training immediately upon arriving as the managers and the captains of both teams had first gone to the pre-match press conference.

After the pre-match press conference, in Porto’s locker room…

Sergio Conceicao was going through the game’s formation and tactics with the players and he was employing the aid of a whiteboard to illustrate his words.

The formation that Porto would be using for the game was the same 4-4-2 formation that they usually used, but this time it was the 4-4-2 diamond variant that they occasionally used.

Augustin Marchesin was the goalkeeper in between the sticks.

Wilson Manafa was the right back while Alex Telles was going to be the left back.

Chancel Mbemba would be taking the place of Ivan Marcano as a center-back due to Ivan having sustained a knock in the game against Braga, and Pepe would play as the second center-back.

Danilo Perreira would be playing as the center defensive midfielder while Otavio would play as a central attacking midfielder.

Jesus Corona had gotten a thigh injury in the previous Braga game thus leaving the right midfield to Jason, while Luis Diaz would be on the left side of the midfield.

Starting up front was Tiquinho Soares and Moussa Marega who would be playing as the two centre forwards on the left and right side respectively.

The formation was set up with the focal point of their attack being to attack on both sides of the field instead of the center before the ball was sent into the box.

This meant that Jason and Luis Diaz would be the ones doing most of the work when it came to attacking while the rest of the team’s job was to get the ball to them and stay around to support them as they took the ball forward and finally get into goal scoring positions so that they could receive the ball back and put it away.

It sounded simple on paper, but it would be a thousand times harder to do on the field, but the players suppressed whatever anxiety threatened to crop up in their hearts.

Jason especially felt his heart threatening to leap into his throat as he realized that this was actually his first final game, but he took deep breaths and put his focus on making sure that his equipment fitted well.

It helped to take his mind off the upcoming game for a bit and the players were soon on their way out to begin their pre-match warm-ups while live cameras followed them every inch of the way.

The fans of both teams were already tuned in and were keeping an eye on the players even before the game began.

It didn’t need to be said that tensions were already running high and the fans of both teams were already biting their lips in anticipation of the final game.