Establishing Discipline
(Video of Seong Ian scoring three goals in a row)
Kid's a first-year at Baekhwa High and he's insanely good;; I heard he hat-tricked last game too?
Two games off the bench, six goals and one assist;;
My name started getting around after Baekhwa High's quarterfinal against Pohang Buk High.
The first spark came from TSM Magazine, which had interviewed me after the round of sixteen. Unless you were one of the handful of fans who actually followed domestic prospects, most football supporters never touched the thing. But those few fans were the ones posting about me on the communities, and that was how word began to spread.
Yeah. Getting famous like this isn't a bad thing.
There was a problem, though. If I ever ended up playing for the Spanish national team, Korean fans might brand me a traitor and tear into me. I was the son of a Korean father and a Spanish mother, which meant I held dual citizenship in both countries. Personally, after being called up once for Korea before the regression and then discarded, I preferred Spain. Beyond that, Spain was simply far more competitive than Korea when it came to breaking into Europe or contending at international tournaments like the World Cup.
…I'll figure out the details later.
Baekhwa High versus Pohang Buk High had been the first of all the quarterfinals. That meant the remaining three quarterfinal matches still had to finish before the semifinal bracket could be drawn. On top of that, the organizers gave the last team to play roughly three days of rest to recover. From our perspective, we had about a week.
The coach split that week cleanly. Day one was rest; then he rolled out a five-day short-term training program. I spent the first day with my family and returned to the dorm the next morning.
"Hey! Over here!"
Unlike usual, the squad was in training tops instead of match kits, running a practice game across the pitch. The one who stood out, of course, was Lee Gwanghyeon. He took a pass from Jeong Inho and drove straight toward the penalty box.
Thwack—!
A clean strike with the inside of his foot skimmed just wide of the post.
"Close one~"
The other third-years tossed him a few words of encouragement, but the first- and second-years only clapped quietly and jogged back into position. From a junior's point of view, a senior who kept wasting chances like that was hard to like.
Gwanghyeon's tournament numbers so far: six starts, three goals, one assist. Every one of those goals had come at a critical moment, which made them valuable — but if you looked at how many shots he'd taken, the picture flipped. Across the tournament he had fired thirty-two shots and converted only three. Rounded, that was a nine-percent conversion rate. For a striker, it was abysmal. He clearly knew it, too; the anxiety was written all over him.
"Oh? Ian! You're here?"
Kang Junmin, same year as me, waved from the pitch. He was currently playing as one of the double pivots on Gwanghyeon's side.
"Yo. When did you do that interview?"
"That? After the round of sixteen, during the rest day."
"Back then? Man… Han Yejin's intel network is ridiculous—"
"…You know Yejin-noona?"
"Obviously. My sister's a journalist too — same university, same department as Han Yejin. Wait, since when do you call her noona? Don't tell me…"
"It's not like that."
"Come on, be honest. A face like Han Yejin's is top one percent in this country, right?"
He wasn't wrong — Han Yejin was a beautiful woman. But she was twenty-seven and I was seventeen. Ten years between us.
I only call her noona because she makes me do it whenever we text anyway.
At the coach's order to warm up, I started stretching and scanned the field. If Gwanghyeon was the weak point on his side, the other team's problem was Seo Taeseong. He was still carrying the first goal he'd gifted the opposition through his own mistake last match. Even during games he couldn't fully lock in, and according to the others he stared blankly through meals and even while trying to sleep.
Which one do I fix first…
I looked back and forth between Taeseong and Gwanghyeon, then started walking.
"Jimin-hyung! Coach says you're subbing out!"
"Yeah? Go on in."
Jeong Jimin, who'd been playing on Taeseong's side, came off for me.
"Sunbae!"
"Hm? Ah… Ian."
"Hyung. Honestly, from what I've seen, you don't have a gift for man-marking."
Taeseong just stared at me blankly as I stepped in close.
"But hyung."
"…Yeah?"
"You're strong at positioning and tackling. Instead of going out to man-mark when you're not good at it, just hammer a tackle into the lane where the opponent's going to cut in with the ball! That'll work every time."
"Uh… okay."
I clapped him on the back a couple of times and pushed upfield.
Possession belonged to Gwanghyeon's side. As always, Jeong Inho set up for the throw-in. The ball sailed farther than usual and settled safely at Junmin's feet.
"Gwanghyeon-hyung!"
Kang Junmin sprayed a long pass toward Lee Gwanghyeon, who was already on the run. The timing was off, but Gwanghyeon forced the control and managed to settle himself. Tap… tap. Nudging the ball, he cut in from the touchline toward the middle, then lightly nutmegged our right fullback who had stepped up to press him.
A clear shooting chance. Gwanghyeon wound up to strike—
Crack—!
The ball was smashed out of play by center back Seo Taeseong.
But the important part was—
"Aagh—!!"
Gwanghyeon's own foot twisted under Taeseong's tackle. He went down hard, clutching his ankle and rolling on the grass.
"Gwanghyeon!"
Everyone rushed over in concern, but the only ones who truly looked after him were the third-years closest to him. The rest just stood there, watching him writhe in pain, saying nothing.
I was no different.
"Gwanghyeon's out for six weeks."
The next day, the coach gathered every player and delivered the news. An ankle injury usually ran four to eight weeks — six was on the better side of that range.
"Taeseong."
"Yes, sir…"
Taeseong hung his head, looking even more crushed than before.
"…I'm not calling you over to scold you. If you'd made that same play in a real match yesterday, it would've been a clean clearance."
Color slowly returned to Taeseong's face. The defensive problem, at least, was resolved. At the same time, the attacking problem was resolved too — even if it wasn't the way I'd wanted.
"And our next opponent is… Namseo High."
Namseo High School. Champions of a different tournament we hadn't entered, and currently the youth side of Incheon's K League club. Their game was built on sharp attacking power and organized defending. Even I, who hadn't paid much attention to high school competitions, remembered a few of their names.
Kim Dongyeop… and Choi Dongwook.
Both of them would one day play for the Korean national team, and both were at Namseo High right now. Kim Dongyeop was their attacking midfielder, a player whose strength was razor-sharp crosses and passes. Choi Dongwook was their defensive midfielder — his stable defending and ability to join the attack were among the best in his age group.
I'd first met them before the regression, when I was called up to the national team. Choi Dongwook's debut for me was the Germany match I'd come off the bench for; he'd completely erased their ace, and I'd watched it from the closest seat in the house. Even setting those two aside, Namseo High was a collection of pure talents — but those two were the core.
The moment the semifinal opponent was announced, the team's mood shifted. The earlier talk of "while we're here, let's go all the way to the final" quietly became "for a non-pro-affiliated school like Baekhwa High, just reaching the semis is already a success."
"Anyway… with Gwanghyeon, our starter, out, I've redrawn the squad list."
Attack: Lee Dae-eun, Seo Junhyeok, Jeong Jimin
Midfield: Kim Minhwan, Yoo Gwanhee, Kang Junmin
Defense: Jeong Inho, Seo Taeseong, Jang Jeongsu, Kim Seongsu
Keeper: Joo Ingyu
Once again, my name wasn't in the starting lineup.
"Ian. Don't be too disappointed… I know exactly what you can do."
"…Yes, sir."
By this point it felt strange. A player who scored a hat trick every time he came off the bench in two substitute appearances, and he still wouldn't start him? Then I noticed the name filling Gwanghyeon's spot was a second-year senior. In the end, the coach had benched me again for the simple reason of "experience."
The day before, when he'd sent Gwanghyeon to the hospital, the sudden hole in the first team had clearly rattled him.
He probably stayed up all night thinking it over in the dorm. But putting a senior in just for experience…
Even if the coach had lost sleep over it, I still couldn't make sense of the choice. Still, I showed up to every training session without fail. Even if I wasn't starting, I could at least come on as a substitute the way I had last match.
The remaining five days flew by, and before long the semifinal against Namseo High was right in front of us.
"We're winning this and going to the final! Got it?!"
With captain Lee Gwanghyeon injured, vice-captain Seo Taeseong had taken the armband and was firing up the squad. Meanwhile I sat on the bench again, wearing a fluorescent training vest.
Tweet—!
The referee's whistle blew, and the match began.