Where the Star Goes
“Languages? Italian and Korean both come naturally to me. Communication isn’t a problem at all, I think… When I’m thinking things through, I do it in Korean. Being able to join the national team is a real honor. Thank you for calling me up — I look forward to working with everyone.”
“Yohan Lee! Just a moment—”
“I’m sorry. The coach is calling us to go… Next time. Excuse me.”
After the brief interview, Yohan apologized to the reporters still firing questions and climbed onto the bus the national team had prepared.
It was a deliberate effort to shield such a young player from as much media pressure as possible — something you never would have seen from the old football association, which used to shove players forward as human shields. The reporters might have grumbled, but the fans were glad to see the association handling things this way. That said, the association’s past still cast a long shadow of doubt, and only consistently good conduct would erase it.
At the national team lodging, Yohan met the players who would be his teammates.
The Korean squad was stacked with individual talent. Plenty of them were starring at clubs across Europe, including regulars at powerhouses like Liverpool and Dortmund. The age range was well balanced too — a so-called golden generation. The one glaring hole was finishing: in the entire history of the World Cup, no Korean player had ever scored five or more goals. That was why the fans pinned their hopes on Yohan becoming the national team’s spearhead. In the A-match against Azerbaijan he started, and he scored on debut almost immediately.
Having raised everyone’s expectations, Yohan hurried back to Rome and rested. Completely unaware that he was making front-page news across Korea, he watched Haley packing her bags at her place and felt a pang of regret.
“Why are you packing already? You’ve still got two months.”
“I’ve only got two months left, so I need to start. Winter clothes and stuff.”
“Want help?”
“Yeah. Open that drawer and put whatever comes out into the suitcase.”
“Got it.”
Yohan dragged over the suitcase — a swirl of pink and apricot — and opened the drawer Haley had pointed to. What came out made him flinch.
It was her underwear.
Until fairly recently he could walk past Haley’s scattered lingerie without a second thought. Now, looking at it, something… shifted. Embarrassed, maybe. A little of that feeling crept in.
“What are you doing?”
Haley’s impatient voice came from behind him. Did she really feel nothing about him handling her underwear like this?
With that thought in mind, Yohan carefully placed her things into the suitcase.
“Why pack these early? Don’t you still need to wear them?”
“I’ve got plenty of other underwear.”
“Oh. Okay, done. What now?”
“What, you trying to get rid of me already?”
“What kind of thinking produces a line like that?”
“I’m kidding. Come over here and rub my shoulders.”
“That’s a little…”
“You don’t want to?”
“Well… yeah.”
“Why?”
“I don’t feel like massaging someone who’s leaving.”
“Oh… Getting bold more often these days, are we?”
“That’s how much I’m going to miss you.”
There was a slight droop in Yohan’s voice. Haley caught it. She stopped mid-reach for her coat, spun around, and looked at him. Then she pushed herself across the floor on her arms until she was right in front of him.
“Hey.”
“Yeah.”
“Emma bawled her eyes out. You gonna do the same?”
“I don’t cry.”
“Yeah, right. Anyway, I’m coming back here a lot. Grandpa and Grandma and the cousins all said visiting was so much fun they want to drop by whenever they can.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’ll stop by so often you’ll get sick of me and tell me to stay away, so don’t worry. Who’s going to look after you if I’m not around? I’ll have to come often just to keep an eye on my little brother. I don’t even know how many times I’ve said this. Anyway — cut it out.”
“I wasn’t crying…”
“Then I’ll hit you until you do.”
Haley brought her fist to her mouth and blew on it. The thought that he wouldn’t get to see that rough edge of hers every day anymore drew a sigh out of him. Still, he had to prepare himself. Even if he couldn’t send her off with a smile, he at least had to send her off brightly enough that she wouldn’t leave with a bad feeling.
A hellish stretch of late March and April, packed with matches against strong sides.
Roma, against every media prediction, put up an outstanding run of results. They beat Milan and took revenge for the first half of the season; drew with Juventus; beat Bologna; beat Fiorentina; and finished the stretch by beating Atalanta as well — five wins and one draw, a massive haul that vaulted them back up the table.
They sat third, right behind Juventus and Inter. The title race still looked distant, though. Juventus had gone on a winning streak in the second half while other teams floundered, opening up a wide points gap. The consensus was that Juventus would take the scudetto again this year.
Roma had also played Europa League fixtures that April. They had looked like bullies in the league, but against Porto they lost — both legs. Facing a Porto side that had knocked out Chelsea was always going to be hard, but no one expected back-to-back defeats, and the glow of their league form dimmed a little.
The silver lining was that their league position made Champions League qualification look comfortable. Even a small slip was unlikely to change the ranking. Still, complacency was out of the question. With the Coppa Italia their only remaining shot at a trophy, the squad’s mood was deadly serious.
Then came the final. The opponent was Juventus — the same side they had faced at the start of the month.
“There’s no such thing as a team we can’t beat. We’re going to win, and we’re bringing the trophy home. A tenth title — a landmark. For the fans, if nothing else, run like your lives depend on it.”
When Coach Ferraro finished in his usual flat tone, Lorenzo gathered the team around him.
“Juventus? Yeah, they’re strong. Everyone knows that. But you know what? They think winning is their birthright. Four titles in a row and they’ve gotten arrogant. They look at us and every other team like we’re nothing. So let’s hit them once and teach them some humility.”
He didn’t ask them to win it for him. He just did what he always did — encouraged them cleanly, without frills. That attitude lit a fire under the players. Sensing that Lorenzo didn’t want to load them with pressure only made them hungrier.
Yohan most of all. Just as he had decided earlier, he burned with the resolve to add one more winner’s medal to Lorenzo’s career.
Juventus versus Roma had no official name. But the clubs themselves, and the players, treated the fixture like a derby. It wasn’t the Derby della Capitale, but it was still known as a ferocious contest.
Both sides had gone out of Europe and had breathing room in the league, so both fielded full-strength elevens. On paper Juventus held the edge — but that was the media’s and the fans’ view. Yohan firmly believed that he and his teammates were better than the Juventus players.
Inside the stadium, the two sets of supporters’ roaring chants crashed together into pure noise. Standing in line with his teammates, face set, Yohan closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them.
We win. No matter what.
Today’s match mattered to him, but above all it was for Lorenzo. He would lift the trophy alongside Lorenzo in the starting eleven and give him — and the fans — a memory they would never forget.
That resolve barely had time to settle before—
Thwack—!
—Yaaaaaaaaaah!!!
From the first half, Roma were being dragged around by Juventus. The three-at-the-back system the opposing manager had set up completely bottled up Roma’s attack, while their forwards sliced through the gaps in Roma’s defense and tore up and down the pitch. The veteran striker, the odds-on favorite for the golden boot, was having one of those days — every shot he hit was on target. By the twenty-third minute the score was 2–0.
Yohan ground his teeth at his teammates’ helplessness and his own.
If this kept up they would be trampled into the dirt in disgrace, and he refused to let that happen.
“Hoo…”
Standing at the center circle, Yohan drew a long breath and waited for the referee’s whistle.
Peeeeep—!
The match restarted in the unsettled atmosphere. Yohan laid the ball off to Lorenzo, moved this way and that, reading the play — then,
Tap—!
Through the passing sequences of a build-up, the ball came to him. He took on the Juventus midfielder who closed him down.
Tap—.
He glued the ball to his foot, drove forward, and sold an upper-body feint as if he were about to burst away to the right. The Juventus midfielder didn’t bite. Yohan cut slightly right again; the defender twitched, caught between two options.
Tap—.
He flicked the ball the other way with the outside of his foot and swung hard left.
Tap—.
He saw the opponent’s legs move, hooked by the bait — then a sudden change of direction.
Tap—!
He exploded past the unbalanced defender on the right. All of it in a blink. Yohan had left him for dead in spectacular fashion.
—Ooooooh…!!
A roar of admiration erupted from the Roma stands. Until now he had focused on clean, simple play and rarely shown this side of himself; the fans, eyes delighted by his dazzling dribble, felt expectation surge back. The air that had gone flat in the stands began to crackle again.
Yohan, completely unaware of any of that and locked only on the field,
Boooom—!
took one more touch, dragged a defender half a step toward him, and unleashed a long-range shot. From the run-up to the strike — a textbook, beautiful outside-of-the-foot effort that poured spin into a ball already flying left,
“Wha—!?”
and bent it sharply the other way, into the right corner the keeper could never have predicted.
And then—
Thwack—!
It rattled the net.
—Yaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!
An extraordinary curling strike. It called to mind a legendary Brazilian left-back — the angle was tighter, of course, but the impact was that strong.
Yes…!
Yohan clenched one fist, sprinted full tilt, beat the stunned keeper to the ball, and scooped it up. He ran for the center circle, traded quick high-fives with Novak and Lorenzo on the way, and waited for the restart.