Chapter 901: Time for Higo to Work Hard!

Honestly, Higo was no stranger to scolding his teammates in the middle of the game. He never shied away from it, especially when they suddenly lost focus mid-game.

This was definitely one of the occasions, as the last couple of minutes had been quite infuriating for Higo to handle everything by himself.

"Fuck it! Focus! Focus!" He shouted fiercely. "Captain! Where is your command?! You let everything loose in the middle!"

The captain himself, Omar Mascarell, had sweat dripping down his face as he didn’t expect to be pointed out so suddenly like that. In all of his career wearing the captain’s armband for Schalke, Alexander Nubel had never dared to shout at him like that, and yet, here he was, facing the fiercest goalkeeper that he had ever seen in his life.

Still, he just nodded quietly, accepting the criticism. After all, the last two attacks from the opponent indeed came from his fault, as he failed to coordinate the midfielders around him to be quick enough to shut down all the spaces in front of him.

Well, it was also the midfielders’ problem, since they always waited for someone to command them even when it was so obvious what they had to do. Still, the biggest blame, of course, fell on the commander who couldn’t get them to do their job properly.

Of course, one scolding was never enough to wake up all the Schalke players who were in a state of distress. No, they kept making mistakes, and it was Higo’s job to ensure that everyone got reminded about it all the time.

"Rudy! Don’t get baited! Shrink back! Shrink back!"

"Fuck! Benjy-san, talk to Captain! Don’t rush together like that! What the fuck?!"

Fortunately, all the effort that Higo showed was enough to mend all the holes in the team’s defense. Slowly, they managed to get out of their distraught state, and while their movement was sloppy, at least they could hold themselves for a moment to make sure that no threat came closer to Higo’s side.

The unfortunate part, though, was that Frankfurt’s offense was getting better as time passed.

In the 25th minute, their best chance came from a good combination play between Daichi Kamada, Djibril Sow, and Filip Kostic, who inserted himself into the channel area. This little one-two pass in the crowded area managed to free Djibril Sow into the penalty box, far ahead of any Schalke defenders there.

This time, though, no flag was raised like Morita before. No, the linesman deemed that he came from behind, so the midfielder had all the time in the world to execute the ball by himself.

BAM!

A ground ball was sent!

Higo reacted quickly, and yet his hand was unable to get in touch with the ball. His heart skipped for a moment, while his stomach dropped as he waited for the sound of the ball hitting the back of the net.

He was lucky, though, that the shot itself went wide. It was just a few centimeters away from the goalpost, and Andre Silva was not in the best position to push it to the back of the net.

"OH, FUCK!" The man groaned, clearly getting annoyed with himself. "Sorry, that’s my bad!" He apologized to the others quickly.

As for Higo himself, he couldn’t help but let out a relieved sigh, knowing that once again, he was just an inch away from his own death. ’Fuck! That was so close! If only he shot a little bit earlier, when his angle wasn’t that tight, I would be in a big disaster...’

Unfortunately for him, this was pure brilliance in offense, and the boy didn’t have any idea how he should stop it. This left a distasteful feeling in his mouth, as he couldn’t scold anyone for this chance, but Higo had to accept that sometimes, his defense had already done their best.

However, the next chance from Frankfurt was enough to make him lose his temper.

It all started with Erik Drum, the home team’s right back, who sent a cross into the penalty box. Inside, besides Andre Silva, Amin Younes and Daichi Kamada also mingled, fighting to get a good position.

To Higo’s surprise, his defenders looked like they froze at that moment, watching the ball flying above them without anyone paying attention to any of the opponent’s players around.

As a result, it felt straight to Amin Younes’s left foot, and the experienced attacking midfielder didn’t waste his time to swing that exact same foot as hard as possible, wanting to whack the ball to the goal before any other Schalke players could reach him.

BAM!

’FUCK!’

This time, though, Higo managed to react quickly enough. Even though he couldn’t prevent the shot, the boy was already straight in front of Amin Younes when that shot came, and he put his body in line to block it away from his goal.

The boy grimaced a little at the burning sensation on his stomach. Yeah, the ball went straight to his abdomen, and the close distance made everything way worse than it looked.

Hell, if he hadn’t gotten used to this scenario, the boy was sure that he would’ve dropped to the ground instantly. The only saving grace here was that the ball bounced straight away from the pitch, not giving any chance for Frankfurt’s players to react.

"Shit! Higo, you alright?!" Stambouli asked, rushing toward the boy when he saw the goalkeeper clutching his stomach in pain. "You need a medic or what?!"

Higo’s face darkened instantly as he retorted in a sharp tone, "What I need more here is for you and the others to focus, for fuck’s sake! How could you let the ball just fly above your head without doing anything else?! Are you dumb or stupid?!"

Stambouli paused for a second, then rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. The rest of the defenders also looked away immediately, probably not wanting to get caught in the crossfire. They all knew that once Higo was in this mode, even God would’ve been scolded by him.

In the end, he just shook his head grumpily, muttering, ’Yeah, a bunch of fucking dead wood, all of them... Fucking useless’ Before being back on his two feet, getting ready to face another attack from his opponent.