"YES!"
The first one to react here was Kawabe. The boy didn’t have any reservations, just celebrating the red card blatantly in front of anyone else. This was just like hitting a jackpot. Not only did they get the third goal, but the opponent’s defender was also getting sent off.
It was basically like the referee was handing the game to Japan right now.
Of course, France was unhappy with this decision. The players surrounded the referee immediately, complaining about it.
"You have already decided to let the play on, so this decision should be invalid!" Their captain tried to argue while preventing his teammates from rushing there.
However, the referee just shook his head, denying the argument firmly. Even in an advantageous situation like earlier, he could still maintain his judgement over the play once everything was over, and a card could still be given if he deemed the foul that happened earlier was too dangerous.
In this case, unfortunately, Dan-Axel Zagadou’s tackle was way too dangerous, and anyone with eyes could see it clearly. That flying tackle sent the boy’s studs straight to Miki Yamane’s shin, and if the left back was unlucky, this action could end his career immediately.
Dan-Axel Zagadou himself seemed to know the consequence of his action, as the boy just stood helplessly while looking at the victim of that foul. He didn’t even utter a single word, just accepting the punishment readily.
In the end, the medical team finally came to the sideline and said to Akiba-sensei, the oldest person on the bench there, "Besides being scary, everything looks okay at first glance, but to make sure that we don’t misjudge anything, an MRI check at the hospital is needed to clear the doubt."
"Do it!" Akiba-sensei didn’t even hesitate. "Ogai-kun, can you accompany Yamane-kun to the hospital first? We will follow you after the game is over." He turned to the team’s conditioning coach.
"Sure, I will be there." Ogai-sensei nodded before going to the locker room first, preparing to go to the hospital. Besides him,
Kageyama-sensei also moved from the stand, walking outside while also starting to prepare for the hospital. His hand was sweaty while he cursed inwardly, finding himself to be in a shit hole once again.
Meanwhile, on the bench, Kumiko bit her lips, praying that everything would be okay. Unfortunately, she still needed to lead the team until the end, so the girl couldn’t do anything other than stay on the sideline helplessly.
Still, she didn’t just stay quiet there. No, besides Yuta Taki, the girl prepared one more substitution. Taichi Hara, another bench warmer, came to replace Koki Morita in the midfield. This was a necessary move to protect his key player, especially when the victory itself was almost secured.
After this, the game finally continued again with the kick-off for France. Miki Yamane’s departure slightly dampened the enthusiasm from Team Japan, but when they realized once again that they were currently leading by three goals, their eyes lit up immediately as they were ready to defend this score with their lives.
Well, they didn’t really need to do that, since the opponent’s players seemed to lose all of their will to fight back in this situation. Losing one player on the pitch was enough to shatter their spirit, and they were not the crazy Liverpool team in the first place. Two goals, they might still have hope, but three? Not even a fool would believe they had a chance to come back.
Oh, they still maintained their façade as a strong offensive team. After all, they didn’t want to get humiliated without being able to score even once in this game. However, after the third goal, they didn’t have any teamwork anymore.
Moussa Diaby was trying to bully the newcomer Yuta Taki on the left side, Yacine Adli was still being so obsessed with breaking through the thick wall in front of Zion, and Amine Gouiri had already started to get desperate, sending one long shot after another without finding the goal.
It was as if they were just throwing away the game and wanted to use the rest of the time to showcase their individual ability.
Well, Makino and Nagai were the happiest ones when they saw this. Unlike the other players who still aimed to showcase their skill for the scouts on the stand, they didn’t have any desire to do that. After all, before this game, they were just bench warmers, and they knew themselves that their chance to get scouted was so close to zero.
No, their main focus today was to have the perfect debut they could imagine, and while winning was nice, getting a clean sheet would be a better case for them. That was why they just let the France players fire the shots one after another happily, letting them waste the time as much as possible.
Meanwhile, the other two substitution players, Yuta Taki and Taichi Hara, were also adapting fast. They might not have a lot of time to do something on the pitch, but whenever the opponent’s threat was close, they would react accordingly, coordinating perfectly with the other players to shut down anything before it got closer to Zion.
Overall, besides the incident that got Miki Yamane out of the pitch, this was a perfect game from Japan, and Kumiko couldn’t help but feel satisfied with the boys’ performance. Her heartbeat also slowed down a lot, starting to get calmer and putting aside Miki Yamane’s matter for after the game was over.
’Yeah, one ticket to the final will be a good present for him. Hopefully, his situation will not be as bad as I thought it would be.’
Once the game entered the 80th minute, the game finally started to slow down. France didn’t try to force their way through Japan’s side again, knowing that their attempt was futile. Right now, they just strolled around while maintaining their possession, which Team Japan happily indulged them in doing.
They might lose possession by a wide margin, but the final score was what mattered today.
After waiting for a while, the referee also checked his watch, and in the end...
FWEEE! FWEEE! FWEEE!
The man finally blew the whistle, ending the game with an absolute win for Japan’s side. They won the game, advancing to the final of the World Cup U-20 in Poland.