Mr. Brightside || João Félix

S I X T Y

F I N A L
9:00PM
A R G E N T I N A V S P O R T U G A L

I walk out with my bag and the starting eleven. I head down to the benches to drop off the bag. They'd be starting off with the Argentinian national anthem, so I'd be waiting my turn to sing. I was gonna take my seat but I didn't see anyone coming out to sing the national anthem.

"Special request from the Argentinian team," the announcer says as he hands off the microphone to Di Maria.

"Any way you wanna sing Argentina's national anthem as well ?" He asks me.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the announcer says as he sees me nod, "singing Argentina's national anthem, please welcome, Sofia dos Santos Aveiro."

I sing the national anthem for Argentina and as I finish the crowd cheers. I blow a kiss to Gio on the stands since she's Argentinian.

"And now," the announcer begins, I look over to the bench and try to walk over but João holds his hand up stoping me catching my drift. He walks over to me with the bag. "Singing Portugal's national anthem," João pulls the robe thingy out and helps me out it on and then racing with the bag back to the subs bench. "Once again Sofia, dos Santos Aveiro."

I sing the Portugal national anthem and then do a little twirl for everyone to see the beauty I was wearing. I walked over to the starting eleven and do my secret handshake with my dad. I wish the players luck and head off to the subs bench to root for them.

"Look at Leão go," I say as we see Portugal starting off strong and Leão already making Dibu nervous.

My dad gets a good opportunity in the 15th minute, but sadly he's surrounded by Argentinian players and loses the ball to Dibu.

"You never leave the striker alone," João groans.

"This is why you shouldn't have started off on the bench," I complain to him.

My dad seems frustrated and looks over at us, clearly knowing it could've led to a goal if João was on the field. In the 19th minute, Portugal is surprisingly, but rightfully handed a free kick, unfortunately it doesn't lead anywhere. In the 21st minute, Cancelo clumsily brings down Di Maria, and ref calls for a penalty.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I groan "that's not a penalty, foul yes, not a penalty though."

"Can't believe they're trying to fuck us over this early," João sighs.

We watch on as Messi steps up to take the penalty and surprise, surprise, Argentina is cheering a goal. Portugal can't seem to keep the ball, they're losing it too quickly and Argentina is applying intense pressure.

"Where the fuck is everyone ?" I complain, "cause they're not on that field."

In the 35th minute, there's a possibility for Portugal to score. It seems like the whole team is charging in on Argentina's box except for Ruben and Cancelo who hang back to defend if anything happens. In one quick play, Portugal loses the ball and that's all it takes. Argentina's fast players travel the field quickly and with an assist from Mac Allister, Di Maria scores for argentina again.

"Oh fuck off," I groan.

I watch as Bernardo Silva is subbed off for Vitinha, we'll see how much more pressure the youngster can help Portugal apply. The rest of the first half ends goalless with Portugal playing defense and Argentina trying to score another goal, but luckily they couldn't.