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## Chapter 4. Division 10
There were people of various ethnicities mixed together, chatting on the green grass.
So I had to squeeze my way in there?
I’m shy around strangers.
And on top of that, they were foreigners.
The only times I had ever spoken to foreigners were when I shouted “Chicken!” at the flight attendant on the plane and when I received the key to the accommodation yesterday.
Phew-
After calming myself with a short breath, I gathered my courage and spoke.
“Hello!”
Everyone turned around at once. I’m not even kidding, it felt like every single person was looking at me.
Was my voice too loud?
“Who are you?”
A white middle-aged man wearing sunglasses approached me, proudly showing off a belly that looked like it had been trained by beer.
“I’m a freshman who is scheduled to enroll tomorrow. Is this the football club?”
“It is, but you’re a freshman? Haha, enrollment is tomorrow, so what brings you here?”
“I wanted to join the club as soon as possible. The school website was too complicated, so I came here to find it myself.”
“Hahaha!”
The white guy laughed heartily at my answer.
“I’m Chris Bradley.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Juwon.”
I shook hands lightly with the bearded man and listened attentively as he explained.
“The football clubs listed on the school website are teams representing the different departments. They’re not official teams. More like small clubs.”
“I see.”
No wonder there were so many.
“Right, Newcastle University has three official football teams in total. They’re teams affiliated with the English Football League. You know the Championship, League One, League Two, and so on, right?”
Just hearing that they were part of the English football league made my heart pound.
“But there are three teams?”
“Two of them are made up of guys who take football seriously, and one is... more for the memories. I’m the head coach of all the teams, and each team has one additional coach.”
“Are the two serious teams divided according to skill?”
“Exactly! You caught on quickly. They’re divided into Team A and Team B.”
Of course, I decided that I had to go to the serious side.
Just imagining myself playing football in the home of football already made my heart race.
It felt like I had suddenly skipped a few grades from my high school football team.
How good would my teammates be?
“I want to join the best team.”
“Oho, really? You’re confident, huh?”
Coach Bradley laughed heartily and patted me on the back.
Even though it was the English football league system, all I really knew was that the Premier League was the first division and the Championship was the second.
“Coach, then what division is our school football team in?”
“Ah! The best team is...”
Judging by his overflowing pride, maybe they were around the fifth or sixth division?
“We’re in the Northern League Division Two.”
That sounded pretty cool, but what exactly was that...?
Perhaps he noticed my bewildered expression because Coach Bradley quickly clarified.
“Ah, right. You don’t know much about the lower leagues. So, um... Ah! Right! It’s the tenth division. Division Ten.”
My jaw dropped.
What?
The tenth division?
.
.
.
Maybe I had filled myself with too much anticipation.
All the expectations I had built up turned into disappointment, and my motivation drained away.
“Sigh-”
“You went out all excited. Why are you sighing?”
Hyung was casually chewing on a hamburger while looking at his phone.
“It’s nothing... I just have to do my best with the circumstances I’ve been given....”
As soon as we returned home, I blamed my own ignorance and hurriedly researched the English football system.
There were leagues all the way down to the twenty-first division.
There was an abyss beneath the abyss.
There was no way I could maintain the positive mindset of, “Well, tenth division means I’m halfway there.”
My goal had been to make my K League debut. Playing in the tenth division was embarrassing to my pride, wasn’t it?
Here, you had to reach the fourth division to be a professional, and you had to make it into the sixth division to be a semi-professional.
Chew, chew-
I was already so troubled, and seeing Hyung chewing away in front of me annoyed me so much that I snatched his hamburger and took a bite.
“Gah! Hey! You’re eating the one I was eating!”
“I’m hungry.”
“Jeez, stop being difficult. You weren’t like this before. What happened to you... Hey, what are you worried about anyway? Whether it’s the tenth division or the hundredth, if you’re good enough, you can skip several levels at once.”
“That’s true.”
“Exactly, you idiot. Put it this way. If De Bruyne played in the tenth division, he’d be back at Man City within two years, you punk.”
He was right.
“Of course, you’re not De Bruyne. You’re Kang Juwon, hahaha.”
That was also right.
Damn-
That one really hurt.
.
.
.
Since I had no other solution, I decided to climb my way up using the method I was best at.
The method that had allowed me to endure all the unfairness in middle and high school.
Quietly overcoming it.
I took out the football boots I had secretly brought from Korea and headed for the field.
“Oh~ Here he is~ What was your name again, John?”
Coach Bradley recognized me and waved.
What about me makes me look like someone named John?
“I’m Juwon.”
“Oh, right, John.”
“Huh?”
“No? Jwin?”
“...Just call me Won.”
If you separated Ju and Won when pronouncing them, it wasn’t difficult, but when they were connected and pronounced quickly, I could understand why it sounded like Jwin.
“Okay, Won. Before you take the official test, can I see your student ID? I need to register you.”
I handed him the student ID that had just been issued yesterday.
“Hmm? Won. Your name is Juwon Kang? Kang. Gang. Kang is easier to pronounce.”
“I don’t really like my surname.”
In reality, there was nothing wrong with going around introducing myself as Juwon, so I had simply forgotten to include my surname. What could I do? I had lived that way for nineteen years.
“Really? Country is Korea, right?”
“Yes.”
“Since you’re registered, let’s head to the field.”
Today was apparently B Team’s training day.
There were around twenty players warming up on the field, and the atmosphere seemed more relaxed than I expected.
“Hey! Bradley.”
The person who noticed us and approached was the B Team coach. Coach Bradley immediately introduced me.
“This is Won. He’s from Korea. He’s a freshman.”
“Hello.”
As the coach approached, the players naturally turned their attention toward me.
“Oh, is that Asian guy a gym boy?”
“He’s huge!”
“Your physique is really good. What position do you play? Defense or attack?”
I was currently 186 centimeters tall and weighed 85 kilograms, with a body built from muscle rather than fat.
This body was the result of Kang Juwon’s relentless efforts to compensate for his talent.
“I’ve mostly played midfield.”
“Haha, the second line, huh? Seems like a waste of that physique. Anyway, let’s start with a simple test.”
I had ended up playing midfield unintentionally during middle school, but for now, it was fair to say that it was the position I was most familiar with.
Of course, I preferred playing in a more attacking position.
I had even briefly played as an attacking midfielder during high school.
After waiting for a while, I saw the coach approaching from a distance with a ball.
With everything that had happened over the past few days, I still hadn’t kicked a ball with this body.
I examined my body from one angle to another before applying some force, feeling the muscles twitch as though they were proudly asserting themselves.
The corners of my mouth twitched with strange satisfaction.
I had been the one who had always needed to overcome unfavorable physical conditions.
And now I was in a position to make use of them.
The range of plays I could perform would increase beyond imagination.
“Won! The test is simple. We’ll check your trapping, passing, dribbling, and shooting.”
“Yes!”
Good.
First, I was going to Team A.
.
.
.
I was assigned to Team B.
Phew-
It was a day I never wanted to experience again.
Had I underestimated how difficult it would be to adjust to the balance of my new body?
I had always been extremely confident in my ball control, but simply having slightly different feet, a different foot size, and a different angle produced completely different results.
Fortunately, I gradually began to adjust, and from the middle of the dribbling test through the shooting test, I managed to finish without any major problems.
“Won. It wasn’t bad. You’ll improve quickly.”
Seeing that I looked depressed, the coach came over and offered me some words of encouragement.
I know I’ll improve quickly... Coach.
I’m just embarrassed.
“He looked like he had some training, so I expected more, but he’s nothing special.”
“Is he really that bad?”
“He’s definitely below me.”
Thanks to Kang Juwon having studied English unnecessarily hard, I could even hear the whispers behind me.
I glanced over and saw a group of four men and women.
Among them, I spotted the guy who had been putting me down.
He was boasting to a Latina girl with wavy hair about what football was supposed to be.
Dating on a sacred football field.
A hollow scoff escaped my lips.
Beep! Beep!
“Everyone, pay attention! We’re going to have a simple six-on-six mini-game. Get ready!”
“Won! You’re playing too. You have to play a game to celebrate joining us!”
The whistle sounded at exactly the right moment, so I brushed off my shorts and stood up.
I put on the vest handed out by the coach and looked over the opposing team.
After finding my target, I called over the teammate standing beside me.
“Hey, what’s the name of that guy with the beard?”
“Him? Andrew.”
“Ah, okay. Thanks.”
Thanks to my difficult middle and high school years, I had become an expert at taking down my own teammates during practice.
Andrew.
Andrew.
Andrew...
I’d make him pay dearly for talking behind my back.
Beep!
The game began with our team kicking off.
I had already adjusted somewhat during the earlier test, so the sense of awkwardness was much smaller when passing the ball around.
“Hey!”
My play gradually became more confident.
I took on the role of controlling the ball in the center and distributing it to my teammates.
The opposition soon noticed that every ball was passing through me and rushed toward me, but I shook them off with a few upper-body feints and created a numerical advantage.
I passed the ball sideways, received it again, and reached the front of the goal in an instant.
I lightly scooped the ball up from underneath it and scored with a lob.
This is way too easy.
At this rate, I should be able to tear that guy apart.
---
Head Coach Chris Bradley watched the mini-game while talking with the B Team coach.
“Oh, that was a beautiful goal.”
“He’s a completely different player from earlier...?”
Bradley was genuinely surprised by Juwon’s performance, beyond simple admiration.
He dominated the game within minutes. Was it just a coincidence?
It felt as though a professional player were playing around with amateurs.
His concise touches and clean footwork made it impossible for the opposing players to even think about getting a foot on the ball.
“Hey, Bradley. That kid shouldn’t be on B Team. It’s only been eight minutes and he’s scored four goals by himself.”
Bradley wanted to watch more of Juwon’s play, but he agreed with the B Team coach.
“Yeah. If we let him keep going, Andrew might quit the football club.”
After the first goal, Juwon and Andrew had somehow ended up matched against each other one-on-one again and again.
Andrew was nutmegged three times in a row, and Juwon’s stepovers tricked him into losing his balance and falling over.
After that, seemingly realizing that Andrew’s spirit had been broken, Juwon even attempted long-range shots right in front of him.
That was when the B Team coach suggested stopping the game.
Hmm. He probably wasn’t doing it intentionally, right?
There was no reason for someone who had just arrived today to be that malicious, Bradley thought.
It would have been a good lesson for Andrew as well. He wasn’t the kind of kid who would break down this easily.
However, Bradley’s faith would be proven wrong for an unexpected reason.
---
Ah, that feels refreshing.
After neatly finishing my revenge, I was about to head to the bathroom.
“Hey!”
Huh?
I turned around at the sound of someone calling me and saw two girls from Andrew’s group standing at the entrance to the field.
The one approaching me was the Latina girl Andrew had been talking nonstop to earlier.
“You were amazing. What’s your name?”
I thought the two of them were dating, but apparently not.
Even overseas, no matter how open-minded people were, a girl wouldn’t openly do this in front of her boyfriend.
While I was caught off guard by the girl who had suddenly approached me, I noticed Andrew in the distance.
His mouth was slightly open, his eyes filled with disbelief and devastation.
Then he suddenly dropped to his knees and collapsed forward.
“Hmm? What’s your name?”
“Ah, my name is Juwon.”
“I see! That’s a cool name!”
Behind the giggling girls, Andrew was helped away by his friend, leaving the field looking utterly dejected.
This part wasn’t my intention.
Seriously.