Collision Course
Seong Taeuk, Ulsan's center-back, swallowed a curse as he watched Kim Hanbin come barreling toward him. 'Damn it... how the hell am I supposed to stop that monster?!'
According to the profile briefing before the match, that striker was supposed to be 187 centimeters tall. Seeing him in the flesh, he looked a solid 190, and then there were those shoulders. It was as if the man had strapped a clenched fist to each side of his body — he moved like one of the bodybuilders gracing the Olympia stage.
'He's not a personal trainer, he's a footballer. Why does a footballer have muscles like that?!'
The other defender who had thrown himself at Kim Hanbin alongside Taeuk — the junior, Youngtae — was already sprawled on the grass. Youngtae had clearly gotten his shoulder in first and committed to the duel properly. But after barely a second of physical contact with that striker, he had been shoved aside like a sheet of paper.
'Youngtae's no pushover either... he lost that easily?'
And going for an aerial duel right now was out of the question. The image of Kim Hanbin's jump from the opening goal was still burned vividly into Taeuk's mind — the way the man had rocketed skyward like a basketball player and plucked the ball clean out of the air.
'A straight aerial contest — I lose that. I have to kill it with a foul!'
Taeuk made his decision in an instant. Abandon the aerial battle entirely. Read the charging striker's movement and commit to brutal body checking — no, a full body slam — foul be damned.
THUD-!
“Kuhk!”
He had braced for the impact first, and yet the groan tore itself out of him anyway. It felt like being hit by a truck at full speed. Was this what a car accident felt like?
'What is this guy, a human boulder?!'
Taeuk tumbled across the ground, rolling over and over, every joint in his body aching. But the body slam he had thrown his entire frame into had done its job. Kim Hanbin, who had been bearing down on him like a runaway freight train, lost his balance on impact.
Hanbin hit the ground once, then sprang straight back up and lunged after the ball — but it had already flown far beyond any hope of recovery.
The referee stretched both arms forward and signaled advantage. Play continued without stopping for the foul.
The long ball arced onward, and Enzo chased it down with everything he had, barely hauling it in. But Ulsan's wing-backs had already flooded in to cover the gap Taeuk had left. Enzo tried to dribble past them, held onto the ball, tried to break through — and in the end the Ulsan wing-back stripped him of it.
So Suwon's attack died an agonizing death, and the match was briefly halted. The referee walked over to Seong Taeuk, who had committed the reckless challenge on Kim Hanbin, and produced a yellow card.
“This foul is a clear obstruction of an opponent's path.”
At the referee's firm words, Taeuk lowered his head without protest.
Straight away, Suwon's captain Cha Kangmin sprinted up from his own defensive third to the halfway line to make his case.
“Come on, wasn't that a clear denial of a goal-scoring opportunity? He blatantly body-checked a man going for the ball! That has to be a red!”
But the referee shook his head resolutely.
“If the foul had been near the penalty area, I might have considered it. But it happened around the halfway line. It's difficult to judge that as a clear goal-scoring situation. I will hear no further appeals.”
Kangmin knew protesting further would get him nowhere. Reluctantly, he nodded, muttered an acknowledgment, and trudged back to his position.
Not long after, the whistle blew for the end of the first half.
The contrast between the two teams as they walked off could not have been starker. The Suwon Blue Sky players — the away side — wore blooming smiles, flushed with the satisfaction of an unexpected opening goal and half an hour of dictating the match. The Ulsan Dolphins players, meanwhile, had conceded the first goal at home to a relegation-zone side, and their faces held nothing but scowls.
Silence hung over the Ulsan Dolphins' locker room.
The Ulsan manager swept a hardened gaze across his players. It came to a stop on the center-back Seong Taeuk.
“Hey. Taeuk.”
“...Yes, Coach.”
Taeuk answered weakly, head bowed.
“That last challenge before the half ended. Why didn't you even contest it properly — why did you just kill it with a foul? Are you telling me you didn't believe you could win the ball against that rookie?”
Disappointment soaked through the manager's voice.
“You're on a yellow before the second half has even started. You know as well as I do how much harder it gets to play the second half when your center-back picks up a booking in the first.”
Taeuk's head sank lower under the rebuke. A first-half yellow for a center-back was a mistake with no excuse attached.
“..... I'm sorry, Coach.”
He hesitated for a long moment before forcing the words out. Defeat weighted his voice.
“Coach. To be honest with you... that kid... I don't have the confidence to stop him.”
At Taeuk's blunt confession, the manager — and every coach and player in the room — froze. Nobody had expected a man rated among the K League's elite defenders to say something like that.
This was the same player who, right up until kickoff, had been swaggering about how one rookie would be a breeze. Forty-five minutes of football, and he was completely deflated.
The Ulsan manager studied Seong Taeuk with a conflicted expression. This was the backbone of his defense — and Taeuk was a proud man. If he was willing to say this much, it meant that rookie's ability was truly something out of the ordinary.
'That Kim Hanbin... if Taeuk's saying this much, the kid must be anything but easy. Then again, what he showed in the first half was already more than enough...'
Having made up his mind, Manager Choi raised his voice to address the entire squad.
“Alright, everyone, snap out of it and listen to me!”
Every player's eyes snapped to him at once.
“Right now Suwon is playing long-ball football. And where does it all start? Cha Kangmin! Every single attack begins with that long pass he sprays from the back! So in the second half, the moment Cha Kangmin takes the ball and winds up to go long, our forwards and midfielders press him immediately — no hesitation! You do NOT let him play that pass in comfort. Understood?!”
“Yes, Coach!”
The players' roar shook the room.
“And in midfield — Kwon Yeongdae. That one's no slouch with his kicking either. Not on Cha Kangmin's level, but he can slide a razor-sharp pass forward at any moment. Press those two first and foremost, and never let them find the timing to launch it upfield!”
Manager Choi hammered the point home again.
“Defenders — don't hand that number 50 easy space like you did before. Get tight on him, stick to him, make his life miserable! And the attacking line!”
His gaze turned to the forwards and attacking midfielders.
“I'm subbing you all out depending on how things go, so spend every last drop of energy you have left on that pitch pressing like your lives depend on it! Somehow, some way, we get the equalizer — and then the winner. Got it?!”
“Yes, Coach!”
“Good! The second half is OUR time! Keep it short and simple! Do not give the ball away cheaply — read where your teammates are at all times and make the pass clean and precise! Play with your heads on fire and we can absolutely turn this around! Let's go!”
With the manager's final words, the Ulsan players threw their shoulders together and shouted as one before heading back out to the pitch.
“Ulsan!”
“FIGHTING!”
The moment the second-half whistle blew, the Ulsan Dolphins players moved nothing like they had in the first.
Above all, every time Cha Kangmin touched the ball, Ulsan's forwards and midfielders swarmed him as if they'd rehearsed it, pressing like lunatics. Two men closed in on him simultaneously, denying him both the space to spray a long pass forward and the time to even think.
'These guys... they're just throwing themselves at me like there's no tomorrow, huh?'
Kangmin clicked his tongue. Ulsan's pressing intensity had abandoned any pretense of stamina management — it was beyond anything they'd shown in the first half.
Normally he would have scanned the field and picked out a precise long pass, but right now that was impossible.
'Of course... this is a tactic only Ulsan can pull off with that deep bench. They're planning to crush us flat in the opening stretch of the half.'
In that case, rather than gambling on risky long passes that could easily be cut out, the wiser play was to drain the opponents' legs. Kangmin signaled to his fellow defenders and midfielders, and instead of forcing balls forward, began circulating possession with short, safe passes.
And so a ferocious midfield battle unfolded between Suwon and Ulsan. Ulsan pressed relentlessly, hard and high, and Suwon fought however they could to slip free of it. A knife-edge tension wrapped itself around the pitch.
Then, around the 15th minute of the second half, under the weight of Ulsan's ferocious press, a pass from Suwon's veteran midfielder skidded backward.
It was a fatal error. Ulsan's striker pounced on the gift without hesitation, and wasted no time in burying a clean shot into the net. One-one. All square.
“WOOOAAAAAHHH-!!!!!”
The roar of the Ulsan home supporters shook the stadium. The Ulsan players, riding the momentum, waved their arms up and down, whipping their supporters into an even greater frenzy. In an instant, the entire atmosphere of the match had swung to Ulsan's side.
The Suwon players gathered at the halfway line, stricken. Above all, the veteran midfielder who had committed the error stood with his head bowed.
“I'm really sorry. Because of my mistake...”
Cha Kangmin clapped the veteran on the shoulder.
“No, hyung-nim. Show me one footballer who never makes a mistake. It's fine, truly.”
Kangmin looked around at the players and went on.
“Besides, look at them — sprinting around like madmen. The substitutions are coming soon, trust me. Let's aim for the moment they're scrambling to make changes. Right now the press on me and Yeongdae is crushing... so next time, we'll draw as many eyes as we can. And then, hyung-nim, you pick your moment and play that long ball straight to Hanbin yourself.”
At Kangmin's suggestion, the veteran midfielder nodded.
“Alright. Let's try it.”
Kim Hanbin, who had been listening nearby, stepped up to the veteran.
“Hyung, don't worry about it. Let's make something beautiful together!”
The unexpected comfort from Hanbin left the veteran midfielder blinking in surprise. Then he broke into a wry smile.
'This kid... I gave him such a hard time on his first day with the squad, and here he is picking my spirit back up...'
He gave Hanbin's shoulder a light smack.
“Thanks, Hanbin. Let's do it.”
Time flowed on, and before anyone realized it, the match had passed the 30th minute of the second half.
The relentless high press Ulsan had maintained since the opening minutes of the half had visibly drained their attackers. From the Ulsan bench came the signal to substitute. Two flagging forwards and two attacking midfielders came off all at once, and fresh attacking legs poured on.
And in the chaos of Ulsan's players shuffling positions on the pitch after the changes, Cha Kangmin's eyes flashed.
'Now!'
The press on Kangmin was still fierce — but among the freshly introduced players, no organized movement had yet taken shape. Kangmin strung together a few short passes to scatter the opponents' attention, then slipped the ball to the veteran midfielder as planned.
Receiving it, the veteran didn't hesitate. The instant the ball arrived he lifted his head, quickly locating Kim Hanbin up the pitch, and lashed a powerful long pass toward him.
FWOOMP-!
'Damn it! I hit that too hard?!'
The thought struck him the instant his foot met the ball. The savage pressure from Ulsan's midfield seconds earlier had hurried him, and far more power had gone into the strike than he intended. The ball was flying faster and higher than he'd envisioned.
But Kim Hanbin calmly tracked the incoming ball. His mind was working faster and sharper than it ever had.
'This pace... this angle...!'
His eyes swept the field ahead. The Ulsan goalkeeper had stepped slightly off his line, playing a high defensive position.
And in Hanbin's mind, a memory surfaced — the final goal of his million heading drills. Robin van Persie's Superman diving header from the 2014 World Cup.
'...This is the chance!'
There was no room left for hesitation. He was sorry to Enzo, charging in alongside him from the left — but this one he had to finish himself.
'Enzo... forgive me! I swear the assist comes next time!'
Hanbin launched himself with every ounce of strength in his body, toward the spot where the falling ball would come down.