Victory in the Second Half! City Reverse the Score Against Chelsea!
"Hah... I can do this. I can do this."
Chelsea came flying out of the tunnel with a blistering counterattack.
Right. I can't play like Jung Tae-woo. I'll contribute to Manchester City in my own way.
Unlike the first half, he could see the players moving now. The match-reading he had honed across countless reserve games was slowly coming back to life.
"Castillo! Don't step up — hold your ground! If you hold that position, the others will read off you and settle into theirs!"
"Marco! Left side's open! One more step to the left!"
"Push the center-back line higher! Chelsea's hunting the counter!"
Every second he was reading the game, picking it apart, and the voice commanding the back line grew louder and louder. The timid, shrunken figure from the first half was gone without a trace. With that distinctive snap of judgment, he stripped the opponent's patterns down to the bone and orchestrated his teammates' positions.
A goalkeeper was not merely there to stop shots. He was the team's last defender and the starting point of the first attack — Lucan knew that better than anyone.
And his son was here.
He would not let Oliver watch his father concede.
"Bruno! Their forwards are trying to use the flanks! Funnel them into the middle!"
That anxious keeper from the first half had vanished. Standing in front of the goal now was only a veteran who had spent fifteen years analyzing matches and studying tactics.
"Left! The left is empty! James, do not recycle it backwards! Chelsea always loves to break down the wing and then lay it off!"
Lucan's instructions were precise. Sure enough, the Chelsea attacker tried to lay the ball back — and City's defenders were already occupying that space.
The back line began to trust Lucan's instructions absolutely. Moving to the sound of his voice, the defensive line flowed like a single living organism.
Oliver, are you watching? This is what your dad spent fifteen years building.
Lucan murmured it inwardly. It wasn't a spectacular save — but this, right here, was his true worth. His reactions might be a step slow. So he made sure the other side never got the shot off in the first place. And if a shot did come, he funneled it toward the place he had already predicted. That was the style fifteen years of a football life had perfected — Lucan's, and Lucan's alone.
Lucan had never once in his life been called a genius. For fifteen years he had been nothing but a man of effort. And now, on the grandest stage in the game, veteran commentators who had watched countless prodigies pass through the Premier League were calling him one.
"Oliver, just a little longer. We'll be at Daddy's stadium soon."
Emma soothed the boy in the back seat. The five-year-old had talked about nothing but his father the entire ride. In the car the club had sent — a staffer at the wheel — Oliver was wearing a tiny pair of goalkeeper gloves.
"I want to see Daddy's match right now!"
Emma smiled and ruffled his hair. She still couldn't quite believe it — that on the day of her husband's first-team debut, she was going to the stadium with their son.
From the moment Oliver had declared he wanted to be a goalkeeper like his dad, Lucan had done everything he could to keep the boy from watching him play. Even when the debut was finally scheduled, he had told the family not to come.
Emma gazed out the window, lost in thought. Of course she understood. Standing in front of a son who looked at him like a hero, he hadn't wanted to be seen making mistakes. She was a mother herself. She knew that feeling too well — the desperate wish not to look small in front of your child.
That was why, at first, she hadn't planned to go either. She understood her husband's heart too clearly.
But last night, a single phone call from Manchester City's manager, Peter Guardian, had changed her mind.
"Hello. This is Peter Guardian, manager of Manchester City. I understand Lucan's son Oliver wants to be a goalkeeper."
"Tomorrow, Lucan will start. The Lucan I've seen... he can absolutely be a father his son is proud of — a father he looks up to. His real value isn't in spectacular saves. It's in the leadership that holds a team together."
"Please, come to the match and cheer him on. So that Lucan can show what he's truly worth — so that he can find the courage. For Oliver, it will be a moment he'll never forget."
After that call, Emma understood her husband's heart even more deeply. It hadn't simply been a wish to hide his shortcomings. It had been a father's aching hope to show his son even a slightly better version of himself.
She watched Oliver fidget with the gloves, chattering in a bright, excited voice. He was still too young to know what winning and losing meant, or the weight a mistake could carry. For him, the sight of his father out on the pitch was everything.
"Mom! Daddy can stop the ball like a real superhero, right?"
"Of course. Daddy has a special power."
"What kind of power?"
Emma thought for a moment, then smiled.
"Hmm... Daddy's a wizard who turns every player into one."
Oliver's eyes lit up.
"Whoa! Then Daddy's a soccer wizard!"
Emma smiled again at the pure, unguarded words. The closer the car drew to the stadium, the more her chest filled with a quiet thrill. Today, without a doubt, would be a special day for every one of them.
By the time they arrived, the second half had already begun. Guided by club staff into the VIP seats, Emma and Oliver fell into the match at once.
"Daddy! Daddy's over there!"
Oliver shot to his feet and waved. Lucan standing in front of the goal filled the whole of the boy's vision. They had heard he'd conceded three in the first half — but the man on the grass now did not look diminished in the slightest.
"Look, Mom! Daddy keeps saying something to the defenders!"
Oliver watched every movement with fierce concentration. Each time Lucan lifted an arm to shift the back line, the small gloved hands moved in exactly the same way.
"Wow... it's really like magic. When Daddy moves his hands, the defenders move with him."
Emma could see it too — how different her husband looked.
Just yesterday he was so tense about a first-team debut...
She thought of the Lucan she had grown up with. The boy who had crumpled at being told he lacked talent, and then gotten back up and worked without end. Seeing him standing there now, proud in a Manchester City shirt, her eyes stung.
"Mom, why are you crying? Daddy's playing so well..."
Oliver looked up at her, worried.
"I'm not crying. I'm just... so happy."
"If you're happy, you're supposed to smile, aren't you?"
Emma smiled at the innocent question.
"You might not know this yet, Oliver, but sometimes, when you're truly happy, the tears come anyway."
"Hmm... really? I only feel like laughing..."
She settled him on her lap and looked out over the pitch.
"Daddy's doing wonderfully, isn't he?"
"Yeah! He's the best in the whole world!"
"Wow... so that's possible too."
In the seventy-eighth minute, Jung Tae-woo sat on the bench and watched Lucan's play with close, careful attention. It was the opposite of his own style in every way.
He stopped that... like that...
The sequence just now had been especially striking. Predicting Seo-joon's strike from distance and shifting the defenders in advance was the baseline. But Lucan had gone a step further. Factoring in the passing options, he moved the back line until Chelsea's attacking routes were sealed completely shut.
That isn't snap judgment. He's reading the entire match...
Everyone else was watching only the defensive organization. Tae-woo's eyes saw more. A vision that took in the whole of the game, and the precise decisions made inside it.
He doesn't look like a goalkeeper. He looks like a manager standing on the field...
Lucan was not merely a keeper. He was a manager in gloves.
Only then could Tae-woo read the depth of Peter Guardian's intention. Why he had insisted on starting Lucan — the reason came into sharp focus.
He never said it to my face, but he wanted me to watch Lucan and learn...
If he had told a first-team starting goalkeeper to go learn from a reserve player, Tae-woo's pride would never have allowed it. So the manager had chosen a wiser path. He had made him see it. Made him feel it. Sitting on the bench, watching Lucan conduct the match, Tae-woo understood that this was the road he had to walk next.
I was arrogant... I thought I was already the best there was at this position...
Like a guiding star, the manager had quietly laid his future out in front of him.
Wait... then he was planning to put me on the bench from the start?
Tae-woo looked steadily at Peter Guardian, who was barking instructions with fierce energy from the touchline.
And he kept saying he was sorry... it was all an act.
A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Of course. Peter Guardian was the kind of manager who would even put on a performance if it meant the team would grow. The very best.
The scoreboard still had Chelsea in front. But sitting on the bench, watching the match unfold, Tae-woo felt a certainty settle in his chest.
This isn't how it ends.