Cracks in the Mini-Klassieker
Varkenoord Training Ground, southern Rotterdam, Netherlands.
The Ajax youth team bus, having left Amsterdam, peeled off the highway and rolled into the heart of Rotterdam. The view beyond the windows was nothing like Amsterdam’s elegant canals. Crude harbor cranes, gray factory smokestacks, and a raw sea wind.
This was a city of laborers—and for Ajax players, enemy territory of the purest kind.
"Damn… atmosphere’s brutal."
Ryan, seated by the window, swallowed hard.
The moment they entered the training-ground gates, the abuse and jeers hit like a waiting ambush.
"Boooooo—!!"
"Ajax joden! Get the hell out of here!"
"Money-slicked soft boys think they can play football?!"
Beyond the chain-link fence, hundreds of Feyenoord fans had gathered, middle fingers thrust high. Red flares erupted, acrid smoke seeping into the bus. Empty cans and trash clattered against the chassis—thud, thud.
Mini-Klassieker
Ajax and Feyenoord—the fiercest rivals in the Dutch Eredivisie. Their matches were called De Klassieker, and every one of them felt like war. That hatred bled straight down into the youth ranks, even into a U-17 fixture.
Ma Gang-cheol sat with earphones in, staring blankly out the window.
Compared to the South American away trips of his previous life—where filth and knives rained down from the stands—this was child’s play. The enemy outside didn’t worry him.
"Hey. You know the plan, right?"
In the very back seat, Tomas—wearing the captain’s armband—whispered to his teammates, eyes flicking toward the back of Gang-cheol’s head.
"Today’s stars are us. I’m not watching that ‘Nike Boy’ grab the ball and strut around. Got it?"
"Yeah. Keep the passes among ourselves. Give it to him and the whole flow dies."
"Time to expose the Asian marketing parachute for what he is."
Isolation.
They chose humiliating the thirteen-year-old billionaire who had rolled into their squad over winning the match itself.
Yesterday’s fifty-euro bet had supposedly broken his pride, yet Tomas—pride wounded instead—was drawing the lines even more viciously.
The false belief that money had bought him a starting spot, the relative deprivation—it was eating the team’s cohesion alive.
Gang-cheol turned the volume up.
Cute little bastards. Go ahead and try.
Ten minutes before kickoff. Locker room.
Coach van Basten rapped the tactics board.
"Focus. Feyenoord will come out rough. First fifteen minutes—if you fold under their pressure, it’s over. Hard press, high tempo. Clear?"
"Yes, Sir!"
The players answered loudly, but their eyes were looking in different directions.
Gang-cheol was assigned the attacking midfielder role. Tomas was the pure striker up top.
In theory, Gang-cheol would thread the passes and Tomas would finish. Reality was something else entirely.
The tunnel leading to the pitch.
Damp wind carried a metallic tang of rust.
Tomas brushed past, shoulder-checking Gang-cheol.
"You won’t touch the ball much today. Enjoy the grass. Or just sit there counting the money you love so much."
Gang-cheol said nothing. He simply tightened the laces of his boots.
His eyes were already scanning the entire field.
"Peeeeep—!"
The referee’s whistle launched the first half.
Fifteenth minute.
The fear became fact.
From the opening whistle Feyenoord charged like rabid dogs. Backed by the home crowd’s frenzy, their fight was sky-high.
But Ajax’s real crisis wasn’t the opponent’s press—it was the crack they had opened themselves.
Ajax’s play was a mess.
Gang-cheol slipped into the perfect pocket of space between Feyenoord’s defensive blocks from his central midfield position.
"Here! It’s open!"
He raised his hand.
The right winger on the ball saw him. Their eyes met. The timing was there.
Instead he forced his head the other way and launched a reckless long ball toward Tomas on the far side.
"……"
Gang-cheol let his arm drop, empty.
Feyenoord’s back line had already read the long ball.
"Obvious! So damn obvious!"
Bang!
A hulking Feyenoord defender body-checked Tomas off the ball and claimed it clean. Tomas screamed and tumbled.
Possession flipped.
Gang-cheol sprinted full tilt into defensive recovery without a word, burning energy to cover a mistake he hadn’t made.
On the bench, van Basten shot to his feet.
"Hey! Are your eyes broken? The middle is wide open! Why do you keep smashing long balls?!"
The coach’s roar changed nothing.
The scene repeated.
Even when Gang-cheol dragged defenders and carved space, his teammates treated him like a ghost. They only wanted the ball among themselves.
Football is an eleven-man game. The moment you freeze out one player—especially the playmaker meant to dictate the tempo—you are effectively playing with ten.
Outnumbered, Ajax began to buckle under Feyenoord’s momentum.
The jeers from the stands grew louder.
"See that? Ajax are fighting each other!"
"That little Asian kid’s getting iced out, huh? Poor thing!"
Twenty-fifth minute of the first half.
Disaster struck.
Tomas collected the ball near the halfway line. Gang-cheol gestured for the short, safe option beside him.
The cleanest, surest route.
Tomas ignored him. Instead, for show, he drove the ball alone straight into the heart of Feyenoord’s defense.
I’ll show them. We don’t need Nike Boy.
He plunged recklessly between three defenders.
The result was inevitable.
Thud!
Feyenoord’s defensive midfielder shouldered Tomas clean off his feet. The impact felt like being hit by a truck.
Legitimate physical play. The referee kept the whistle silent.
While Tomas sprawled on the grass, the ball found a Feyenoord attacker.
"Counter! Run!"
The moment possession was lost, Feyenoord’s wave of a counterattack rolled forward.
Ajax’s back line was exposed—midfielders had pushed up for the attack.
A Feyenoord winger tore down the flank like a gale.
Gang-cheol chased like a madman, but it was already too late.
A razor-sharp cross.
Bang!
The Feyenoord striker arriving from the far side met it with a header.
The goalkeeper stretched, but the ball cruelly bulged the net.
Ripple—!
Twenty-second minute. Feyenoord’s opening goal.
0–1.
"Waaaaaah!!"
The Rotterdam crowd erupted. Red flare smoke billowed; jeers and water bottles rained toward the Ajax bench.
The Ajax keeper punched the turf. Defenders stared at one another in a daze.
Tomas scrambled up, red-faced, protesting to the referee, but the scoreboard had already changed.
"These stupid kids…"
Gang-cheol planted his hands on his hips, breathing hard.
He had expected the scenario, yet anger still surged. His first-team debut, his salary, his reputation—everything he needed this stage for—was being wrecked by petty jealousy.
Van Basten hurled a water bottle from the bench.
"I told you to play football, not politics! We’re settling this after the match, you lot."
Halftime whistle.
0–1. Ajax trailing.
The players trudged toward the locker room like cattle headed for slaughter, heads down.
As they passed through the tunnel, Feyenoord players snickered and mocked them.
"You guys come here to fight each other? That teamwork was pure art."
"Thanks. Made it easy for us."
Tomas’s face flushed red and purple. He had no comeback.
Halftime. Locker room.
The atmosphere was a funeral—no, a full-blown riot.
Players sat sweat-soaked, gasping, staring at the floor. Tomas, of course, shattered the silence.
"Hey! Defend properly! You should’ve covered!"
He vented at an innocent center-back—preemptive strike to bury his own blunder.
"You’re the one who lost it! Forcing that dribble!"
"What? You think I wanted to lose it? Their defender used his arm! Ref’s eyes are broken for not calling it!"
"Bullshit! You should’ve just given it to the winger!"
Blame flew. Voices rose. They were a heartbeat from grabbing collars. Teamwork lay in pieces.
Then—
"What a load of crap."
A cold, low voice.
It was Korean, but the contempt in the tone needed no translation. Every head turned.
Gang-cheol sat on the corner bench, legs crossed, face dry and fresh. He hadn’t touched the ball, so he hadn’t run, so he hadn’t sweated.
"What? What did you just say?"
Tomas stomped over, eyes lighting up at a new target for his rage.
"What the hell do you know? You barely touched the ball once. You here for a stroll?"
Gang-cheol rose slowly.
His eyes were not those of a thirteen-year-old boy. They belonged to the battle-scarred veteran captain who had once dragged a team out of the relegation zone. That icy presence made Tomas flinch without meaning to.
"Your touches: fourteen. Turnovers among them: nine. Pass completion: thirty percent. Shots: zero."
Precise data poured from Gang-cheol’s mouth like machine-gun fire.
"And the clear open chances that could have come to me: six. Three of those would have been one-on-ones with the keeper. You ignored every one, danced with the ball, lost it, and that was the goal we just conceded."
"……!"
Tomas’s mouth snapped shut. The diagnosis was too accurate, too cutting. The other boys held their breath. Gang-cheol’s aura crushed any urge to speak.
"If you hate the money, curse the money. If you hate Nike, curse Nike. But why the hell are you wrecking the football too?"
Gang-cheol walked into the center of the room.
He pointed at the tactics board stamped with Feyenoord’s crest.
"Where did that famous Ajax youth pride go? Doesn’t it hurt your pride to lose to those Feyenoord hicks? You’re going to throw this match just to screw me over? Can’t you hear those Feyenoord bastards laughing outside?"
Faces twisted.
He had struck the raw nerve.
Losing to Feyenoord was never just a defeat. It was humiliation. Shame. That pride still outweighed their jealousy of “Nike Boy.”
Gang-cheol caught the subtle shift instantly.
"If you want to win—"
He stepped to the tactics board, picked up a black marker.
The click of the cap splitting the silence.
"Listen to me. Second half, I run the show."
He began drawing bold X’s and arrows across the board without hesitation.
Van Basten opened the locker-room door, then froze in the gap, watching.
A thirteen-year-old kid had the older boys gathered around him for a tactics lecture.
"Tomas, you stay parked up top. Don’t drop below the halfway line. Just hold your line. I’ll deliver the ball."
"What? Why should I take orders from—"
"Don’t you want to score?"
Gang-cheol cut him off.
"The fifty-euro bet is a bet, but we still have to win the match. Even if you hate Nike, you still want the win bonus, right? I’ll thread it. You just put your foot on it. Then you’re the hero. You hate that idea?"
Tomas’s lips trembled.
Pride stung, but the offer was irresistible. Hunger for goals, hunger for victory—Gang-cheol had driven the blade straight into both.
"And wingers—don’t stay wide. Tuck inside. Feyenoord’s full-backs are getting excited and pushing high. The space behind them is empty. When I get the ball, you cut inside every time. Forget offside and just run. I’ll put it on your foot."
A voice full of certainty.
This was no thirteen-year-old’s bravado. It was the conviction of a commander who saw the entire match.
The boys nodded as if entranced. The true master of the locker room was no longer van Basten or Tomas—it was Gang-cheol.
The coach stepped fully inside.
He had come ready to scold them with a hard face, but instead he folded his arms and smirked.
"Ma’s right."
The coach’s seal of approval landed.
"Second half, we change the system. Free role centered on Ma Gang-cheol. Anyone I catch refusing a pass out of personal feelings gets subbed off immediately and banished to the second team. Clear?!"
"……Yes, Sir."
The answer sounded different now.
Gang-cheol set the marker down.
"Let’s go. Time to show the Rotterdam kids what real football looks like."
He led the way, pushing open the locker-room door.
Behind him, the boys who had been isolating him only moments earlier began falling into step one by one.
He was no longer alone.
The moment the maestro of the pitch took up the baton.