First Call-Up — Orientation and the Hellish First Training
The young reporter who had fired his question at Kim Hanbin's flustered reaction let a smile creep across his lips.
He wore the expression of a man thinking, He took the bait, hook line and sinker.
Meanwhile, most of the other reporters merely exchanged puzzled glances and murmured among themselves, as if to ask, Suwon Gallery? A profanity post? What's that?
Apparently, far more of them were still unaware of Hanbin's exploits on the Suwon Gallery.
Kim Hanbin swallowed dryly for a moment and gathered his thoughts.
If he fumbled out a half-baked excuse here, or let his panic show, things would only get worse. There was only one way through — straight down the middle.
"Um... on that front... I'd say it's simply one of the ways I communicate with my fans."
"A way of communicating?"
The reporter pressed him.
"Yes. As far as I know, the fans in that community have responded really well to my honest, unfiltered way of connecting with them. In fact, they've sent me a great deal of support and encouragement. Haha..."
Hanbin said it with an awkward laugh.
"And honestly... that particular approach is actually a fan-communication technique handed down to me by none other than Cha Kangmin, the captain of my club, Suwon Blue Sky. Ahem."
Hanbin coughed once, in a way that made it abundantly clear where all the blame lay, and continued.
"Of course, now that I've been honored with a place on the national team, I'll do my utmost to conduct myself with even greater care going forward. Thank you."
Faced with Kim Hanbin's slickly evasive answer, the reporter who had asked the question could find no follow-up and simply licked his lips in frustration.
And so the somewhat precarious interview came to an end, and Hanbin followed a guide into the building.
A staff member in a crisp suit who had been waiting at the entrance approached him.
"Player Kim Hanbin, this is your first time at the Paju National Football Center, correct?"
"Yes, first time. The facilities are incredible."
"It's the national team facility — it had better be the best in the country, haha."
The guide flipped through the folder in her hand, pulled a key card from her bag, and handed it to Hanbin.
"Now then, Player Kim Hanbin, you've been assigned to Room 305 on the third floor over there. Most of the players' rooms are doubles, but you've luckily been assigned a single. Head up, unpack, and then at 4 p.m. there'll be a brief orientation in the second-floor meeting room along with a rundown of the upcoming training schedule — just make sure you're there by four."
"Ah, yes. Understood. Thank you."
Hanbin nodded along as he listened to the guide's explanation.
He parted ways with the guide and took the elevator up to the third floor.
Walking down the corridor, he noticed nameplates bearing each player's name on every door.
The room he stepped into was a neatly kept single.
It was more spacious than he'd expected, and through the window the impeccably manicured grass of the training pitch stretched out below in a refreshing view.
Inside, everything he needed was there — a bed, a desk, even a small refrigerator.
Hanbin undid the latches of his carrier and began unpacking.
Nearly finished, Kim Hanbin spotted a bag sitting on the bed.
Printed on its side were the words: Republic of Korea National Team Welcome Kit.
When he opened it, the first thing to catch his eye was a neatly folded red uniform.
Red, with the blue tiger emblem — the symbol of the South Korean national football team — emblazoned across the chest.
So I'm finally... wearing this.
Hanbin carefully lifted the uniform out and unfolded it.
The red uniform. The very uniform that was the dream of every footballer in South Korea.
For the man who had once scraped by juggling shifts at a convenience store and a kids' football academy, it had been something beyond even imagining.
But now that dream had become reality, held right there in his hands.
Lost in quiet reverie as he gazed at the uniform for a long while, Hanbin finally checked his watch and hurried to finish unpacking the rest.
Before he knew it, the 4 p.m. the guide had mentioned was drawing near.
He left his room and headed down to the second floor.
When Hanbin reached the door of the second-floor meeting room, he opened it and stepped inside.
Some twenty players had already arrived in the spacious room.
Most were young players of a similar age, and they seemed already acquainted with one another, chatting in small clusters here and there.
On their faces sat the excitement of a national team call-up — and, beneath it, a flicker of tension over the fierce competition to come.
The moment Hanbin walked in, every chatting head turned toward him.
The very air in the meeting room seemed to shift.
"Whoa, it's Kim Hanbin."
"Seeing him in person, his physique is no joke."
"That's the guy tearing the K League apart right now."
A few players murmured among themselves, trying to keep it quiet, but the room had been so silent that their voices drifted faintly to Hanbin's ears.
Most of the players looked at him with pure curiosity tinged with a hint of anticipation, but in the eyes of a few, an overt wariness was unmistakable.
The gaze of the players who appeared to be forwards was especially sharp.
The most dangerous rival threatening their spots. That was what Hanbin was to them.
Hanbin deliberately ignored the stares, found an empty seat, and settled in near the back.
Before long, the meeting room door opened and Head Coach Baek Seungnam entered with his coaching staff.
Baek Seungnam walked to the front and swept his gaze across the players.
His sharp eyes lingered briefly on each face before moving on. Then he spoke, his voice ringing with force.
"Alright, everyone, eyes up front. First off, thank you all for the long trip out here to Paju. And above all — my sincere congratulations on making the preliminary squad for the South Korean U-23 Olympic team."
Clap clap clap.
He began applauding, and the players followed the coach's lead with a smattering of applause.
"No one here needs an introduction to me, right? I'm Baek Seungnam, and I'll be leading this Olympic squad."
He introduced himself briefly and plunged straight into business.
"Starting today, we're going to spend four weeks on something absolutely crucial. This one month could change every one of your lives."
Head Coach Baek Seungnam continued, calmly surveying the room.
"There are twenty-eight of you here right now. And as I'm sure you all know well, only nineteen of you will actually make the final Olympic entry — excluding the three wild cards who aren't here today. In other words, roughly one in three of the people in this room is going home instead of to the Olympics. Everyone understands that, yes?"
The coach's blunt words sent a fresh wave of tension through the players.
Some swallowed hard; others waited for the coach's next words with taut expressions.
"I do not show favoritism in selection just because someone has trained alongside me for years, and I do not hand out spots unconditionally just because someone put up good numbers elsewhere. The only standard of judgment will be the ability you show on this training ground and in the evaluation matches coming up."
Coach Baek's gaze bored sharply into each and every player.
"Two important evaluation matches are on our schedule ahead. The final entry will be decided by a comprehensive assessment of everything — your performances in those two matches, your training attitude, individual skill, tactical understanding, all of it — throughout the residential training that starts now. So keep all of this in mind, and give everything you have at every single moment."
When the coach finished, the players answered in one thunderous voice — "Yes, sir!"
"Good. That wraps up today's orientation. In two hours, at 6:30 p.m., change into your training gear and be on the pitch on time. Dismissed!"
The moment the words left his mouth, the players rose in a rush and streamed out of the meeting room.
Hanbin too stood and was about to follow the others out when Head Coach Baek Seungnam's voice came from behind him.
"Kim Hanbin."
Hanbin stopped and turned around. Coach Baek was beckoning to him.
"Yes, Coach."
Hanbin approached with a nervous expression.
Most of the other players had already filed out, and only the coaching staff remained, sorting through paperwork.
As Hanbin drew near, Head Coach Baek Seungnam crossed his arms and studied him closely before asking.
"Kim Hanbin, I understand you have a league match with your club, Suwon Blue Sky, this weekend. What are you planning to do about it?"
Thrown by the unexpected question, Hanbin hesitated for a beat.
"Ah... yes, sir."
"If you want, Hanbin, I'm fine with you going to play the weekend league match. Of course, whether you actually appear will have to be decided in consultation with the club, but from the national team's side, you have my permission."
At the coach's words, Hanbin fell into brief deliberation.
With the national team training barely underway, was it really the right call to leave the training ground alone and go play a league match?
No — Hanbin had complete confidence in his stamina and recovery.
He lifted his head and looked squarely at Head Coach Baek Seungnam.
"I'll be fine, Coach. Stamina is the one thing I'm absolutely confident in. Even if I go play the league match, it will never interfere with training here with the national team. I'll train exactly like everyone else, and be evaluated exactly like everyone else."
At Hanbin's bold, brimming-with-confidence reply, a flicker of amused interest crossed Head Coach Baek Seungnam's lips.
The coach studied Hanbin up and down for a moment, then nodded.
"Alright. Well, if you feel that strongly about it, then so be it. Fine. Consider it settled."
The moment Kim Hanbin left the meeting room, the tactical coach who remained approached Head Coach Baek Seungnam with a worried expression.
"Coach, is this really going to be okay? What if Hanbin pushes himself like this and gets injured? Honestly, we're already building our tactics around him as the near-locked-in starter at striker... if he really does burn out or pick up an injury like this, we're in serious trouble right before the Olympics... Shouldn't we be stopping him now? Especially with a player built like Hanbin — that size and weight puts a real strain on the knees and ankle joints..."
Sincere concern filled the tactical coach's voice. It had only been three matches, but Kim Hanbin's performances across those three games had been more than enough to captivate him.
Still, Head Coach Baek Seungnam shook his head, arms crossed and expression firm.
"Hmm... leave it. With kids that stubborn, you have to let them do things their own way at least once. Only after experiencing it firsthand do they realize what the problem is — you can tell them a hundred times, but if they haven't lived it, it doesn't land. Besides, Kim Hanbin is still woefully short on real match experience. Three matches in his entire career, and one of those was only the second half. I think getting as much actual game time as possible before a big stage is a good thing."
Coach Baek paused, gazing out the window, and went on.
"And Kim Seongcheol, the Suwon manager, praised Kim Hanbin's stamina until he was blue in the face — said it's genuinely something else. He wasn't talking out of turn, I'm sure. For now, let's trust it and see."
Faced with Coach Baek's resolute attitude, the tactical coach could say no more; with a low "Hmm..." he flipped through the tactical notebook in his hand.
He didn't agree with the coach's decision, but the mood left no room for further argument.
And so, that evening.
The U-23 national team's first residential training session began.
Under the coaching staff's direction, the players loosened up with some light stretching, then immediately set off running along the track that circled the training pitch.
Head Coach Baek Seungnam's warning that training intensity would be high was by no means an empty one.
The running went on without end, and the players ran and ran until they'd lost count of how many laps they'd done.
Lungs burning up to their chins and legs on the verge of giving out, they squeezed out every last drop of their souls and kept going.
After an eternity of running, the coach leading the drill finally blew his whistle.
"Alright! Five-minute break here! We start again in five!"
With that, the coach stepped away for a moment.
The instant his words landed, most of the players collapsed right where they stood, sprawled flat on the ground, gasping for air.
"Hahh... hahh... What is this... is this Olympic training or a military boot camp...?"
One player muttered to himself between heaving breaths. Another lying beside him echoed him with a ragged exhale.
"It's not even the eighties anymore. Who makes people just mindlessly sprint like this... They definitely didn't go this hard at the Asian Cup..."
"Everything's 'sports science' this and 'systematic training' that these days — I don't get why the coaches are suddenly acting like it's the stone age, seriously."
The players each groaned and grumbled their complaints, but not a single one dared lodge a direct protest to the coaching staff.
They simply focused on recovering whatever stamina they could during the short break.
While most of the players lay strewn across the pitch like so many wet rags, Kim Hanbin stood alone and quietly in place, drinking from his water bottle.
The players sprawled out, breathing like bellows, all stole glances at him, thinking the same thing: What the hell is with that monster...
The physical coach, watching the players collapse and groan across the field, approached Head Coach Baek Seungnam and reported quietly.
"Coach, as you ordered, I ran the kids into the ground on day one... to knock the wind out of their sails a bit."
An apologetic note even seemed to creep into the physical coach's voice. Head Coach Baek Seungnam nodded.
"Right. The internet and the media keep hyping them up — 'the greatest Olympic squad ever, champions of the U-23 Asian Cup' and whatnot. They're kids who've only just become adults, strutting around all full of themselves from the interviews and press coverage, and if they went to the Olympic finals in this state, they'd get obliterated a hundred times over. Today, the first day, we go hard — and from tomorrow we're back to a normal training schedule."
At Coach Baek's words, the other coaches standing nearby nodded as well.
Their gazes drifted naturally to Kim Hanbin, who stood waiting for the next drill in noticeably better shape than anyone else.
"Wow... but Kim Hanbin... he's really something, isn't he? I figured with that big frame he'd be the first to drop, but he actually looks the freshest one out here."
The attacking coach said, unable to hide his astonishment.
"No kidding. With that kind of stamina, it'd almost be a waste to just have him battling for headers up top. I think he'll hold up surprisingly well on the pressing side too."
The defensive coach likewise marveled at Kim Hanbin's staggering endurance.
At the coaches' glowing assessment of Kim Hanbin, Head Coach Baek Seungnam affected indifference.
"It's only day one of training. Don't get ahead of yourselves. We'll keep watching him over the rest of the training period."