Greatest Of All Legends

**26th May 2021**

*8:21 am*

At the entrance to the J Village, a black Ferrari smoothly turned onto the road that led into the Uventus training grounds.

Stopping in front of the gate that noticeably had more guards stationed there than on other days, Jason nodded at the guards who let him drive past and he continued down the track.

It didn't take long to begin seeing media buses and satellite trucks unloading in the lots, a faint hum of different languages filling the air.

Despite the music from his speakers, Jason could still make out quite a few conversations from the multitude of people unloading, yet some among them managed to grab a camera in time to take a few shots of his car as he drove by.

Maybe they had the camera already prepared.

'That's a lot…' he could not help thinking as he drove to the separate parking lot for the players.

Luckily, this one was bereft of all media coverage despite the cacophony going on outside, but Jason wouldn't have a hard time believing it if someone told him that there was a camera secretly trained on him from somewhere he couldn't see.

Calmly getting down and grabbing his bag before he went in through the player entrance, he reached the locker room where quite a few other players were already dressing up.

"I know today is the media day, but is it always that crazy?" Jason asked Buffon as he sat on a bench beside the experienced goalie.

"I was shocked too, it's like we're having a finals game and we're hardly going to be spending that much time on the training grounds today," Mckennie added as well.

"And good morning to you too," Buffon said back.

"Right, sorry, good morning," Jason greeted with a wry smile.

"It usually is like that. The champions league final is a pretty big event. It's probably second only to the world cup so eyes from all around the world are on it,"

"Today is official so it's sanctioned by UEFA and is mandatory so it's a pretty big deal," Buffon explained with a warm smile.

"Oh, right," Jason nodded and began changing into his sports suit.

More players arrived and the ones who had been selected for media duty put on their sleek, black, slim-fit Uve tracksuits.

A few minutes later, a staff arrived to tell the players that the manager was waiting for them so that they could make their entrance, get the media day over and put it behind them.

Pirlo still wanted his players to do a lot more training as he felt there was still some areas that needed covering.

The players met up with the manager and filed into the main hall that had been transformed into a sort of media room for the event.

Tucked into the line with some of the younger players selected, Jason watched curiously as the event started with a press conference.

Pirlo and Chiellini, the team captain sat behind the desk and were bombarded with questions as soon as the conference began.

From questions about their inconsistency at the beginning of the season to questions about their personal feelings for the game… all sorts of questions were thrown at the men behind the desk, but Pirlo and Chiellini knew how to pick the right questions to answer, leaving a lot of undeserving questions unanswered.

After the general press conference, the hall was divided into pods with sponsor backdrops and players began to take turns to go into the booths to be questioned by the reporters regarding the upcoming finals.

Jason was among the first set of players to get into a booth and be questioned by reporters and his both had almost as many reporters as Ronaldo's booth which would have been a pretty big flex for Jason if he wasn't too busy dealing with questions from the reporters to notice it.

Before the interview began, Jason thought he was ready, but he soon found out that these guys had done their homework and were here with the intent to catch attractive responses from him whether they were controversial or not.

The questions the reporters started with were questions about how it felt to reach the champions league finals and how the journey was.

Jason easily provided responses to those questions, but then the questions began getting spicy.

The next reporter asked whether he thought he would reach the champions league finals just five months after being pushed out by his own team on loan.

Not knowing how to answer that, Jason simply replied, "The lord works in mysterious ways," with a smug smile, after all, one could never go with leaving God to deal with the accountability.

If the reporters weren't satisfied, let them go ask the man in the skies.

"Now that you are going back to Porto, which is a very familiar ground for you, how do you feel, thinking you can claim the trophy in front of your team and the Oporto crowd who doubted your abilities?" another reporter threw another question at Jason before he could catch his breath.

"Who said that?" Jason asked, an eyebrow raised.

"I did," a cheeky looking woman holding a mic replied.

"... If you're a qualified reporter, then I'm sure you know that me leaving Oporto on loan to Uventus wasn't because of performance issues,"

"I love the Oporto fans and did my best for the team every time I was on the pitch,"

"Winning the champions league in Porto is just about that… Winning the champions league. I'm not going to Porto to rub my success in anyone's face, should we win the champions league," Jason replied.

The next question immediately came after that, this one more focused on Jason's preparation for the match and how confident he was in Uventus's chances of winning the trophy.

Time passed by quickly and the interview was coming to an end when a reporter asked a question that had every other reporter's ears perk up.

"What are your plans for the upcoming. Are you going to be extending your stay with Uventus by signing a more permanent deal with them, or are there other clubs you will be penning down your signature for?"

"Well, It's not the transfer season yet so I am just as curious as you are, but we'll see I guess," Jason replied ambiguously, and the reporters nodded, not expecting a direct answer anyway.

"One last question!" one reporter shouted as he saw Jason moving to get off his seat.

"With six months left on your contract, will you be open to signing a new contract with your home team… if your relationship with the club can be repaired," the reporter asked.

"You're asking if I'll play for Oporto again?" Jason repeated the question with more clarity, an amused smile at the corner of his lips.