Practice Match
"Whoa... that's impressive."
"Right? Hey, Ismail! This kid's better than you!"
"Kut! The kid's young! What's an old man like me supposed to do?"
"Maybe you should've laid off the booze when you were young."
"Anyway, we're heading out for drinks. You coming, Ismail?"
"Rot op!"
Once the match was over, the amateur club regulars gathered up their gear and started ribbing the man who'd been subbed off for me. I couldn't understand a word of Dutch, but the teasing was unmistakable. Ismail stormed off in a huff while the others watched him go, grinning from ear to ear.
"We're going out for drinks. Want to come along?"
"No, thank you. I've got somewhere to be."
"That so? Shame... Oh, right — you said you were filming something. Does that mean our faces are going to be on TV?"
"Hard to say..."
I gave an awkward smile and said my goodbyes as the men dispersed. They scribbled down their contact info and told me to look them up if I ever found myself back in the Netherlands.
"...That was something else."
"Ah, it was nothing."
I walked the park with the camera director, chatting as we went.
"Still — two assists in about fifteen minutes of play..."
"Come on. They're just regular guys from a local football club, not professionals."
Besides, the second assist had been pure luck. I'd taken too heavy a touch and nearly let the ball roll out of bounds, then managed a pass so clumsy it barely deserved to be called a cutback. The guy playing striker had simply hammered it near post — essentially a gift-wrapped assist.
Still, I think I've got a decent feel for things now.
When it came to Dutch football, one thing always came to mind.
Total Football.
The system pioneered by Rinus Michels during his managerial stints at Ajax, the Dutch national team, and Barcelona. Total Football could be summed up in a single line:
The goalkeeper is the first attacker, and the striker is the first defender.
That quote from Johan Cruyff captured the essence of Total Football better than anything else — everyone defends, everyone attacks. The revolution he sparked had spread across the footballing world, taking root so deeply that even neighborhood pickup games now ran on its principles.
Ajax will probably play the same way.
Ever since Rinus Michels introduced Total Football during his time as Ajax manager, the club had pursued it relentlessly. That included Jong Ajax, their reserve side. We would be facing a team that carried the purest distillation of Total Football, refined over decades.
The next morning, we headed to a pitch the production team had arranged in advance. After a light jog, some passing drills, and footwork exercises, the coach called us over to stand in front of the cameras.
"What matters for you right now isn't passing or shooting practice. It's your organization as a unit. You think five days of individual training is going to beat an Ajax side that's been playing together for years?"
"No, sir!"
"Exactly. Football isn't a sport you play alone. It's a sport the whole team plays together."
After the coach's lecture, we split into two sides for a practice match. With uneven numbers, we divided into groups of nine and ten. The red team had ten players; the blue team had nine — though the nine included more of the starting lineup. Myself included.
Wearing a blue bib over my kit, I took my place on the pitch. Our formation for the scrimmage was a 3-2-3, and my position was left wing-forward. The other side lined up in a 4-2-3, using their extra man to reinforce the flanks.
The first half kicked off with red in possession. Their striker laid the ball back to a central midfielder, who immediately sent a long ball toward the right wing-forward making a darting run.
Thud.
The red wing-forward settled it cleanly and tried to drive inside —
Crack!
I stretched out a leg and knocked the ball out over the touchline.
"Stay tight!"
I marked the player coming to collect it, and the moment he took the throw-in, I stuck out a foot. The ball deflected off me and bounced forward. Turning my back on my marker, I sprinted after it, then used a drag-back to freeze the red player closing me down before cutting inside to the right.
Their central midfielder lunged toward me, but I'd already slipped the ball to our striker. He tried to fire it into the gap between the center-backs, but a defender's boot deflected it and the ball rolled harmlessly out of play.
Our striker gave me a silent thumbs-up. A wasted chance, but at least we still had a corner.
Since it was a right-sided corner, our right wing-forward took it rather than me. He carried the ball over to the flag.
"Hold the line! Number four — shift over toward Seong Ian!"
The red goalkeeper barked instructions, and their number-four center-back closed in on me. The corner came in high. I jumped with everything I had, but the ball never reached my head.
Thump.
The red center-back cleared it beyond the edge of the box.
"Mine!"
Our midfielder, who'd pushed up in a hurry, got on the ball — only to lose it to a standing tackle from their wing-forward.
"What are you doing?! Get back on defense, now!"
"Haa... damn it."
We all scrambled back toward our own half. The red wingers, already in control of the empty flanks, cut inside and let fly. The shot from their right forward slipped cleanly between the goalkeeper's legs.
They were teammates we'd be playing alongside soon enough, so no one celebrated. The red team simply jogged back to their half without a word of ceremony.
"Insane... he's so damn fast..."
Our central midfielder muttered, wiping sweat from his brow. He wasn't wrong. That right wing-forward was the second-fastest player on our roster, right behind me.
But the bigger problem was the flanks. Unlike the red team, we had no fullbacks. Without them, there was no one to shut down the wide channels — and if a center-back stepped out to cover, the middle opened up like a highway.
Only two people could stop those wing attacks: me on the left, and the wing-forward on the right. We had to drop back and push forward, handling both attacking and defensive duties at once. Just like Jeong Inho used to do at Baekhwa High.
...Even so, this is brutal.
Attacking and defending the flank simultaneously? It was harder than being a box-to-box midfielder who ran from one penalty area to the other. A wide defender sometimes had to track runners all the way into the middle, while a wide attacker had to drive into the box and create. The only silver lining was that we weren't playing a full ninety — just thirty minutes each way.
Still, I'll push it as far as I can.
The production team had told me I was a starter, but the coach's judgment could change that at any moment. On the pitch and in the locker room, his word was absolute — territory even the producers couldn't touch. If I wanted that starting spot locked down, I had to show him why he needed me in the lineup.
I glanced at the coach watching from the sideline, then refocused on the game.
Blue restarted from the kickoff. The striker rolled the ball out to me on the left wing.
Thud!
I knocked it long and took off. A red fullback tried to cut me off up ahead, but just before he could get a tackle in, I changed direction. Caught flat-footed, he was a beat late recovering.
"Hey!"
I slipped a pass to the striker waiting in the middle. The ball threaded through a center-back's legs and found its target.
Tap.
A one-touch turn and a shot. The goalkeeper stretched out a leg and blocked it, keeping the ball in play. I sprinted desperately for the second ball, and so did the striker — but a red center-back got there first and put it out of bounds.
"I've got this one!"
This time it was a left-sided corner, so I ran to the flag. Inside the box, red and blue players jostled fiercely for position. Then I spotted it — our central midfielder standing completely unmarked just outside the area.
Instead of whipping a cross into the box, I played it out to him. The decision paid off.
He cushioned it on his chest, let it drop, and with his right foot drove a low diagonal shot that sliced between two defenders' legs.
Swish.
"Whoa..."
I couldn't help but marvel at the wonder goal. It looked just like N'Golo Kanté's strike against Tottenham — the one that had gone through two defenders' legs and the goalkeeper's as well.
"Nice pass!"
The midfielder was already at my side, hand raised for a high five. We jogged back to our half together as the thirty-minute first half came to a close.