High School Soccer Tournament Finals (1)
The match was scheduled for early morning, so the family couldn't come to cheer in person. They left messages of support in the group chat instead.
"Heheheheh."
"What's so funny?"
Lee Tae-yang shot me a weird look as I sat there grinning at my phone.
"Tae-yang."
"What?"
"..."
"Hey. You called me, so say something."
"..."
"Jung Tae-woo, you possessed or what?"
"..."
"Hey, you punk. Say something already."
"Keep it down back there!"
The coach's roar made Lee Tae-yang jump; he ducked his head at once.
"Yes, I'm sorry."
Then he glared at me and whispered, his voice low.
"I'll deal with you later."
Must have been because I'd gotten younger — my mental age seemed to have dropped right along with it. Why was messing with him this much fun?
Inha High came out in a 3-5-2, looking to hog possession and dictate the tempo. Poongwol High, by contrast, lined up in an extremely attacking 4-2-4, throwing four forwards at them.
Coach is putting his faith in me and going all-out on the attack, I bet.
Right before kickoff, I spotted one Inha High forward who stood out from the rest. Yoo Hee-sung — the protagonist of the novel.
Damn. This kid's ridiculously good-looking too.
Yoo Hee-sung had a different kind of appeal from mine. If I was the cold, sharp-featured type, he was handsome in a boyish, almost cute way.
"Still, I guess that's the novel for you. This is a high school match, and look at this crowd."
In the world of Manchester United's Revival, high school soccer drew almost as much attention as the K League.
"Kyaaaaah! Tae-woo oppa, you're so handsome!"
"Hee-sung oppa! Look over here!"
Famous high school players tended to have fandoms like that.
Get this popular starting in high school and you'd probably end up full of yourself.
Standing in goal, I was a little nervous. But come on — what could really go wrong? This was just a bunch of kids playing.
Something went wrong almost immediately.
Third minute of the first half. Maybe our legs weren't fully warm yet. Or maybe it was the protagonist buff at work.
Yoo Hee-sung's movement slid into my field of vision. He exchanged a lightning-quick one-two with a teammate and came surging toward our back line.
He closed on the first defender, the ball flowing off his feet like water. In the blink of an eye it slipped between the defender's legs, and when the second man lunged into a tackle, Yoo Hee-sung was already gliding past him.
It was his signature move — the Phantom Dribble.
Even the third defender was toyed with by those feet. The rhythm he generated was so fluid it called a Brazilian international to mind.
That's a high schooler? Okay, yeah — he's the real deal.
I stepped forward as if to cut down the angle, while deliberately leaving a gap on my right that was obvious as day.
Show a striker an obvious opening and they can't help but start thinking too much.
Sure, an ordinary goalkeeper would have struggled to stop a one-on-one like this. But whether it was this body of mine or some ability the Soccer Goddess had given me, I couldn't say —
the ball looked slow.
Thwack!!
Yoo Hee-sung stared at me with a look of pure shock, as if he'd never imagined I would actually catch it.
After a lifetime of watching goalkeepers' devastated faces from the striker's side, seeing the reverse was pretty thrilling in its own right. Looking at Yoo Hee-sung's flustered expression, I felt the corner of my mouth lift before I could stop it.
Ahn Hyung-jin, Inha High's coach, could only wear a look of utter disbelief.
Fortieth minute of the first half.
Inha High had recorded no fewer than eight shots on target against Poongwol High — and not a single one had gone in.
"You're telling me he saved all of those?"
Plenty of those shots had been hit straight at him, the kind a keeper should have been expected to stop. But to deny one-on-one chances and shots arrowing into the corners? That was taking it too far.
Right now his Inha High boys were performing at a hundred and twenty percent, not a hundred, executing his tactics to the letter.
"And it's still 0-0. You've got to be kidding me."
All that effort, reduced to nothing by one pretty-boy goalkeeper in a Poongwol High shirt.
Fweeeeeet!
Just like that, the first half ended — hollowly, at 0-0.
The Inha High players filed into the locker room with their heads down. They had played well, and it was still 0-0. No one could have argued that Inha High weren't dominating on possession and every other metric that mattered.
But a 0-0 under circumstances like these only piled more pressure onto their side.
We're not actually going to lose, are we?Why won't the ball go in?We're playing this well — so why isn't it showing on the scoreboard?
Thoughts like those had begun to take root, and with them came anxiety, impatience, fraying concentration — the kind of drift that could drag a team's performance down with it. One mistake could set off a chain reaction and bring the whole side down.
Preventing that was what a soccer coach was for. Settling the players' minds and steering them in the right direction — that was one of the most important parts of the job.
"Why is everyone hanging their heads?"
Ahn Hyung-jin's voice filled the room.
"You carried out my tactics beautifully. There is genuinely nothing you failed at."
At his words, the players began to lift their heads one by one.
"We just keep doing what we've been doing."
"What, is that Jung Tae-woo kid a god or something?"
"No, sir."
The answer came back in unison.
"That's right. He's not a god. He's human. He will make a mistake. He might be in rare form today, but if Poongwol High has him, then we've got—"
Every pair of eyes turned toward Yoo Hee-sung.
"That's right. If they've got Jung Tae-woo over there—"
"Then we've got Hee-sung!"
"Hee-sung, say something!"
The whole room held its breath, waiting on his response. Everyone knew a single word from Yoo Hee-sung could lift the team's spirit.
Yoo Hee-sung looked around at his teammates.
"Everyone calls Jung Tae-woo and me rivals."
He opened his mouth, calm and sure.
"Honestly, I think I'm better than Jung Tae-woo."
The room hung on his confidence.
"More than that, I think Inha High plays far better soccer than Poongwol High. Let's make sure we win this."
"Yeah! Let's get revenge for last year!"
One player shouted it, and the others roared their agreement. In an instant the locker room was packed with heat.
Ahn Hyung-jin stepped forward.
"Well said, Hee-sung. I don't think for a second that Poongwol High is better than our Inha High. You boys have every right to wear that championship medal."
A fierce will to win lit every pair of eyes.
"Alright. One chant, and we go!"
The players put their hands on one another's shoulders and formed a circle. The hunger for victory burned in their faces.
"One, two, three!"
"Inha's passion! The will to win!"
"We are one! Inha High!"
Still shouting the chant, they headed for the field with resolve written across their faces. Ahead of the second half, their hearts were full of hope and confidence.
Reality, however, had other plans.
The ball was rolling inside Inha High's net.
"Wasn't that kid supposed to be a goalkeeper?"
Ahn Hyung-jin's voice shook.
"How the hell does a goalkeeper dribble like that?!"