Chapter 718: A Penalty Kick Against Lewandowski!

"ARGH!"

Thomas Muller wailed in pain as he fell on the ground, covering his face dramatically. When Hofmann saw this, coupled with the sound of the whistle howling earlier, his face went pale instantly, realizing what he had just done.

"An elbow from Schalke’s number 30, Jonas Hofmann, hit Bayern Munich’s number 25, Thomas Muller, straight on the face. On-site decision: a penalty kick and a yellow card for Hofmann."

The referee’s words rang like thunder in every single Schalke player there. Hell, Hofmann didn’t even have time to comprehend everything, and now he had his jaw dropped in disbelief.

"No, Ref! That is an accidental move! I didn’t hit him that hard; he is just exaggerating!" The boy rose quickly, trying to explain what happened.

"Yes, Ref! This is a harsh decision for us! I bet he is just trying to be dramatic here!" The others also tried to help.

Unfortunately, the incident itself happened straight in the referee’s line of sight, and there was no doubt about it. Hofmann, in his panic state, tried to hold Muller back by extending his hand to block the man’s running route. However, he overextended it, getting his palm straight on the man’s face, slapping him without even realizing it.

Higo himself sighed helplessly, inwardly cursing everything that was unfolding in front of him.

’What the fuck are they trying to do?! Even if they want to lose the game, they cannot blatantly show it, right?’ He glared fiercely at Hofmann, enough to make the boy wilt in fear.

Unfortunately, once again, this didn’t change anything for the team. He had to bear everything alone, facing the penalty kick from Bayern Munich. Still, Higo somehow preferred this situation, thinking that at least it was just him against one of the opponent’s players, and not a single one of his teammates could sabotage him anymore.

After waiting for a while, the penalty box was cleared. No amount of complaining from Schalke players was enough to shake off the referee’s decision, so they had to accept this penalty bitterly.

Right now, only he and Robert Lewandowski were standing in the penalty box, and after putting the ball on the white spot just 12 meters away from Higo, the Polish striker raised his head slightly, giving a cheeky smile at the goalkeeper.

The boy just rolled his eyes secretly, finding the man to be more annoying than ever. ’Is he trying to gloat to me? Wanting to tell me that the hell I wanted to bring to him will not happen? Bah! He underestimates my ability in this situation!’

Yeah, even though the opponent was one of the best strikers in this generation, Higo didn’t show any nervousness here. If there was one aspect in his game that the boy was most confident in, it should be his penalty-stopping ability, as he had already proved it so many times in the past.

From his high school tournament to his time with the Young Samurai team last summer, Higo had saved countless penalties for his team, and this wouldn’t be different than any of them. He took a deep breath, lowering his stance for a moment before forcing every single cell inside his brain to work harder than ever.

’Now... Please, tell me where he is about to go!’

FWEEE!

The moment the referee blew the whistle, Robert Lewandowski started moving with his iconic stutter run, glancing for a moment toward the left part of Higo’s goal. This was just pure bait as part of the man’s mind game, wanting to confuse Higo about where he would go next.

The boy himself didn’t care about anything in front of him right now. No, he only trusted what would happen a few seconds later, the one that flashed inside his head. The moment that image came, he widened his eyes instantly, figuring out where the ball would go.

’Left! He tries to double-bluff me!’

BAM!

A second later, Higo shifted quickly to the left side, right at the same time as Lewandowski slammed the ball with his instep. It was a low shot at the height of Higo’s tight, still floating above the ground to add more difficulty. However, Higo’s reaction was so fast that even though Lewandowski used decent power here, he still managed to block it away from the goal.

"WHAT?!" Lewandowski was taken aback for a moment before rushing forward to get the rebound.

"SHIT! SOMEONE!" Higo also gritted his teeth, wanting to get up as quickly as possible for the second ball. He had so many bad memories about conceding a goal from the penalty’s rebound like this, and the boy didn’t intend to suffer from the same fate today.

Fortunately, someone was not falling asleep this time.

It was none other than Juan Miranda, the Spaniard left back, who took action. He was reacting faster than anyone else to get into the penalty box, and the moment Higo made that spectacular save, he was already close enough to clear everything away.

BAM!

The Spaniard didn’t even hesitate here, kicking the ball as far away as possible. He sent it straight to the stand behind the goal, and right after that, two people were crashing on him. Those two were Ivan Perisic and Thomas Muller, as they also reacted fast enough to fight for that rebound.

Still, the ball was cleared away, and the moment everything finally sank into Higo’s head, his face flushed red in excitement as he got up immediately and hugged Juan Miranda on the ground.

"YES, JUAN-SAN! THAT’S WHAT I’M WAITING FOR! COME ON!"

Soon enough, all the Schalke players followed with the same enthusiasm, hugging Higo crazily as if he had just saved the world.

"Damn! What a save, Higo!"

"I mean, what the hell are you eating before the game?!"

"This is your best performance! Ever!"

At this point, somehow, everyone forgot about the awkward distance between Higo and the rest of the team earlier. Now, the only thing on their mind was to celebrate the penalty save properly, finding for the first time that they were not as hopeless as they thought they would be.

’Yeah, we might not be able to win, but at least Higo is right about one thing. We cannot let them get the three points so easily!’