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# Dad's Soccer — Chapter 5
## Just You Wait
185 centimeters, 87 kilograms.
After finishing his morning run, Jihoo looked at his body through the mirror.
Something was strange.
There was no doubt that his physical build was excellent.
He was tall with a Western-style physique.
Unlike Asians, whose builds were generally smaller compared to Europeans, his physique was exactly the kind that was
favored in soccer.
Even so...
The body he was looking at in the mirror felt slightly different from the one he remembered having in the past.
"Did I always have abs like this?"
The so-called six-pack was clearly defined across his abdomen, almost as if it had been sculpted.
And it wasn't just that.
His entire physique felt somewhat different from the body he remembered having before he became an adult.
How should he put it?
It was almost as though he were looking at the body of a player who was already fully developed.
"That's strange..."
Even when he exerted just a little force or slightly twisted one of his muscles, the small muscles throughout his body
visibly rippled.
It was almost impressive.
He definitely hadn't been like this before.
Thinking about it carefully, even his stamina seemed better than it had been back then.
He remembered how much he had hated morning runs.
After running twenty laps around the field, he would be so exhausted that he couldn't even move and would practically
crawl across the ground.
But during his first morning run after returning to the past, he had completed twenty laps and still had enough energy
left to keep running.
It felt as though his body had been upgraded.
"Well, it could just be my imagination."
Something had definitely changed, but Jihoo decided to let it go.
There was nothing he could gain by dwelling on it now.
It had been so long ago that perhaps his memories were simply inaccurate.
And besides, if his body had actually become better, that was a good thing, not a bad one.
"Maybe God is looking out for me."
Jihoo said that and gave a faint chuckle before leaving the locker room.
By then, he was wearing a black-and-blue uniform.
The FC Incheon uniform.
100. Shin Jihoo.
As he walked out wearing the uniform he had been given again, Jihoo gave a bitter smile.
His original jersey number had been 10.
He had been the undisputed ace of the team.
But after his unauthorized absence, Jiman had given Jihoo the number 100 as a way of telling him to repent and get his
act together.
Jihoo had never been particularly attached to his jersey number, but it still stung to have gone from the team's ace to
its biggest headache in an instant.
Still, wasn't it fortunate enough that he could play soccer again?
"You bastard! Did you eat a boiled caterpillar or something? Why aren't you out here already?"
"Yes!"
Jiman's roar came from outside when Jihoo lingered.
Jihoo hurriedly ran toward where the players had gathered.
He could feel the eyes of his teammates on him.
The friends who knew about Jihoo's circumstances seemed happy to see him back, but some of his peers and juniors looked
at him unfavorably, worried that he might take away their opportunities after forcing his way back onto the team.
Then again, there had been people who looked at him with resentment even before this.
Since they had to compete for positions regardless of how well they worked together as a team, Jihoo accepted it as
something natural.
Moreover, Jihoo didn't have a fixed position.
At the time, there was no one else in the FC Incheon youth team who was as outstanding as Jihoo in every aspect of the
game.
That was why he had been used in every position that required an attacking role.
Because he had the potential to excel anywhere, FC Incheon hadn't fixed him to a single position and instead used him in
several different roles.
Naturally, quite a few teammates saw Jihoo as a competitor.
"We'll have a simple practice match. The real game is only a few days away. You all know that, right? Those Daejeon
bastards are desperate because they might be guaranteed to finish last in Group A. We can't lose to the guys in last
place, can we?"
Everyone chuckled at Jiman's joking remark.
The tense atmosphere became a little more relaxed.
Jiman looked at the boys and smiled inwardly.
Too much competition only led to injuries.
The remaining matches were important, so they had to be careful not to let key players get injured because of internal
competition.
"The bastards I call out are wearing bibs. Got it?"
At Jiman's words, the boys looked at him with expressions ranging from anticipation to nervousness.
Wearing a bib during a practice match meant that, at least here, you were likely to be a substitute for the next game.
Of course, it could change depending on the circumstances that day, but for the most part, the players who weren't
wearing bibs were the ones who started.
"Heungsu, Jeongryeol, Gwangsu, Jongjin, Dongwoo... and Jihoo. That's it. Put them on, quickly."
Jihoo hadn't expected to start.
He calmly put on the fluorescent bib.
"The formation and roles stay the same. Got it? As for the time... don't play the full game. Thirty minutes each. Hurry
up and get ready!"
U-18 matches consisted of forty minutes per half.
With the official match just around the corner, this was the final practice match before deciding the lineup. They
wanted to avoid exhausting the players by having them play the full game.
Jihoo naturally took up his position as a forward.
FC Incheon used a 4-3-1-2 formation, and the youth team did the same.
Under the K League system, unless a player was selected through the draft, there was no way for a youth player to be
promoted directly to the senior team. So there was technically no reason for the youth team to copy the senior team's
formation.
But this was Jiman's way of looking out for the third-year students.
He wanted the youth players to have a chance of being selected during the draft, and if they did join the senior team
through the draft, he wanted them to adapt as quickly as possible.
Once everything was ready, the match began with the starting side taking the kickoff.
Jihoo's heart pounded wildly.
This was the first match he had played since returning to the past.
He was standing on a soccer field for the first time in twenty years.
He had tried to prepare as much as possible, but there hadn't been much time, and there was only so much he could do.
As the ball moved back and forth, Jihoo gradually made his way forward.
His view of the field was still somewhat scattered, but there was one thing he never forgot.
His role was to score goals.
For now, he decided to stay relatively still up front and observe his team.
"Oh, dear."
Things looked a little bleak.
Watching the starting side celebrate after scoring almost immediately, Jihoo clicked his tongue.
Even at the youth level, Incheon's squad depth was thin.
No.
To be precise, the gap between the starters and substitutes was enormous.
"Hoo..."
Jihoo received the ball near the halfway line, gathered himself once again, passed it backward, and moved forward.
The ball that had gone all the way back to the defensive line eventually reached Heungsu, the attacking midfielder.
Heungsu looked toward the front and then glanced at the ball.
Jihoo and Gwangsu, a tall forward, were moving diligently to find good positions.
The moment Heungsu took possession, Jihoo was already drawing a defender toward one side.
He had chosen this approach because his acceleration was superior to that of the defender marking him.
His plan was to lure the defender toward the flank, create an opening in the center, and then have Heungsu thread a
through ball into that space.
Jihoo would then leave the defender behind and chase after the pass.
But there was one thing Jihoo had overlooked.
Heungsu's vision.
Heungsu had one of the worst fields of vision imaginable for a midfielder.
To push a pass forward, a midfielder had to read both the attackers' movements and the opposing defenders' movements.
It was said that world-class players could anticipate their teammates' movements in advance, confirm their predictions
with nothing more than a quick glance, and then deliver a brilliant pass.
But Heungsu's field of vision was extremely narrow.
He had to directly look at the situation up front before he could send the pass.
When your vision is limited, every decision comes a beat late, making creative passes nearly impossible and giving
defenders time to react.
Because the pass came late, the defender who had been marking Gwangsu instantly cut in and intercepted the ball that had
been played toward the center.
Heungsu had his problems, but Gwangsu wasn't without his own issues either.
For one thing, he was slower than the defenders.
Like Heungsu, his field of vision was narrow, and his movement as a forward was poor.
The only reason he was playing as a striker was because of his height and the one thing he was good at:
Heading.
If Gwangsu could simply hold off the defender marking him to some degree, there would at least be a chance to make
something out of Heungsu's slightly delayed passes.
That was how fast Jihoo's feet were.
"Is this what they call a complete disaster?"