Get Out of My Team
Get out of my team.
I had watched every match recording. And I was certain.
This team was dreadful. Even calling it garbage felt too generous. It was simply a team that had no business existing in this world.
That was how I saw this club, Seongjin Hanul FC. No—correction. Seongjin Maseong FC.
There were countless opinions on what made the most horrific team of all, but mine was this:
A team where the manager failed to draw out the players’ strengths, where absurd, trash-tier tactics slowly chewed away at their talent. That was the most horrific kind of team.
Why? A side stuck at the bottom for lack of money was simply unfortunate. A side that always slipped at the critical moment and left you aching with what-ifs could become excellent with a few adjustments. Those teams were not horrific.
But a team whose manager’s tactics helped neither the club’s results nor any individual player’s career—how could that not be horrific?
What sealed my conviction was the gap between their abysmal performances and their surprisingly decent results.
Seventeen clubs competed in K League 2. Among those seventeen, Seongjin Maseong FC currently sat ninth. The points gap to third-place Seoul Fantasia was a mere six. In other words, aside from one genuine top side, every club was clustered in the upper-middle pack.
How had such wretched football managed to hold this ranking? How had they scraped together this many points?
It was thanks to the excellence of individual players.
First, captain Nam Gi-cheol. This veteran defensive midfielder, not much older than me, overflowed with passion. His pure ability was nothing spectacular, yet every match he sacrificed himself for the team.
On top of that, he was a player with real mileage. The clever little plays he produced every so often would not have looked out of place in the top flight. That was the level of Nam Gi-cheol, the captain.
His fighting spirit could lift the others—especially the players currently carrying this team’s victories.
Next, Cha Jeong-woo. Only twenty-three, a young winger, yet he alone was responsible for thirty percent of the team’s goals. That was how brilliant Cha Jeong-woo was.
I genuinely could not understand how the previous manager had used him and still ended up with only this many goals. A raw gem of this quality sitting in a place like this was almost unnatural.
It was not just pace. The occasional dribble, the clean close control, the finishing when the chance had to be taken—he possessed talent not only as a classic direct winger but as an inverted winger as well.
Then Jo Tae-ung. The man accounting for the remaining forty percent of the team’s goals… and yet.
I thoroughly disliked him. Not ordinary dislike—the kind that made me wonder why a player like this even existed.
His finishing was not bad, to be fair. But if he had been converting chances the way a proper striker should, Seongjin Maseong FC would not be sitting here; they would be in the playoff places.
What did I mean by that?
He was failing to finish the balls Cha Jeong-woo kept feeding him in volume. The goals he did score were the kind that would strip a man of his professional license if he missed them. Goals created by his own individual ability were almost nonexistent.
If Cha Jeong-woo had been the one standing in those positions instead of Jo Tae-ung, far more goals would have been scored. I was certain of it.
Even so, Jo Tae-ung was still a fairly solid player. His positioning in particular was good enough to call to mind the Italian legend Filippo Orsini.
Handled well, he could become a more than decent footballer. So rather than a full-blown cancer, it was better to think of him as an “infected organ.”
I had surveyed the team’s jewels. Now it was time to examine the tumors.
No—there was no need to examine them at all. The one who looked like the ringleader of these tumors needed to be cut out immediately. Fortunately, the fellow who seemed to be that ringleader was at least competent enough at office politics to come running the moment he was summoned.
“Hm… good.”
I spent so much time alone at home that muttering to myself had become a habit; the words slipped out before I noticed.
Still, I was allowed a little talking to myself right now, wasn’t I?
There was no way a recording device was hidden in this manager’s office.
Han Do-a—that woman—was not the sort of person who would do something like that. I had been thoroughly flustered at first, but the confident bearing she showed afterward, the absolute trust she placed in me, had been filled with certainty.
I had seen eyes like that before. And the people who possessed such eyes were almost always those standing in places impossibly far from where I stood now.
So high that even looking up at them was impossible—truly great figures. Eyes I had only ever glimpsed from a distant remove.
Could Han Do-a—could Shepin—climb to the same place as them? Could I go there with her?
I was certain we could. My life had been a string of failures, paved with nothing but failure, yet the belief that everything would change if I stayed by her side had taken root.
It was faith born of emotion, the kind of feeling I despised most—but sometimes it was all right to surrender yourself to emotion.
Of course I had no intention of simply trusting emotion and hoping for the best. Success only arrived once I had done everything required of me in my own position.
Knock-knock-knock.
The light rap on the door pulled me out of my thoughts.
And the person who entered with that knock was none other than…
“You called for me, Manager.”
Hwang In-bae.
The biggest tumor in this club. The blight who, together with the previous manager, had ruined this team.
“‘You called for me, Manager,’ he says.”
“Thank you, Yu-gyeong.”
With Shepin’s secretary, Yu-gyeong, handling the interpretation, communication itself would not be a problem.
“Have a seat.”
“Yes, Manager.”
Once seated, Hwang In-bae grinned and grinned. An unpleasantly smarmy grin.
I was speechless. Did he even understand what chair he was sitting in?
“Hwang. What role do you play on this team?”
“I am this team’s de facto spiritual pillar.”
Spiritual pillar. The most ridiculous thing I had ever heard.
“A spiritual pillar—what exactly does that mean?”
“Nam Gi-cheol is far too old. Min Jun-seok is the same. They have no energy left. The energy they lack, I possess. My energy is what breathes life into this team.”
Nam Gi-cheol was certainly older—five full years older than the twenty-nine-year-old Hwang In-bae. And Min Jun-seok, the oldest man on the squad, was a full decade older than Hwang.
I could grant that Min Jun-seok was advanced in years. But Nam Gi-cheol covered twice the ground Hwang In-bae did. So who exactly was the one without energy?
“That is why the previous manager appointed me vice-captain.”
And the previous manager had apparently trusted this Hwang In-bae enough to make him vice-captain. Because he had worn that armband, the cancer cells had spread even further through the squad.
He had to be cut out as soon as possible. To that end I decided to show him my computer screen.
“Hwang. Can you look at this?”
“Match footage, I see.”
“Yes. Match footage. Now watch your movement.”
Even as the opposing winger drove at him at speed, Hwang In-bae jogged along at a leisurely pace and completely lost his man.
If Nam Gi-cheol—the same man Hwang had just openly bad-mouthed for “having no energy”—had not sprinted back from deep to block the ball, a goal would have been conceded for certain.
“In this sequence, Hwang—did you run hard?”
“My strength is not speed. Line management and sharp defensive interceptions. Those are my strengths.”
How many of those moments actually existed?
They were not entirely absent, but every one of them was the kind that appeared during a press and was, quite literally, “lucky” to have been snagged.
I showed him another clip.
“This sequence just now—do you understand what the problem is?”
“No one should have stepped up there!”
In the very clip Hwang In-bae was shouting about, every other defender had pushed out together while he alone had stayed put.
For the record, because Hwang In-bae had failed to step up, the opposing winger had been able to receive the ball onside and go clean through one-on-one with the goalkeeper.
Meanwhile Nam Gi-cheol and Min Jun-seok had been yelling something at Hwang; Nam Gi-cheol had even used hand signals. How many times must they have told him to step out?
He was the one who had half-listened to those instructions and handed the opposition a goal, yet somehow he still did not understand.
“Manager, give me the captaincy.”
“Give you the captaincy?”
“Yes! If you give me the armband, I will overhaul this team from the very roots!”
Hwang In-bae launched into his passionate speech, and Yu-gyeong relayed it in a voice that sounded thoroughly incredulous.
The Yu-gyeong who stood at Shepin’s side had always seemed the consummate professional, yet apparently she was capable of a tone like this as well. In this room, perhaps Hwang In-bae’s entire value amounted to nothing more than drawing that expressionless, ice-cold secretary into open astonishment and contempt. I seriously considered the possibility.
“If you overhaul it from the roots, what exactly will you do?”
“I will transmit energy to every teammate, and those who fail to receive it I will ruthlessly cut away! They are cancers who have no place on this team!”
I was so moved by his words that I nearly started clapping. He was truly something else. At this point I seriously wondered whether he had the makings of a comedian.
If he went to Germany and debuted as a television talent, I was certain he would become a nationwide sensation. That was how outstanding his comedic ability was.
The unfortunate part for him was that football cared about footballing ability and attitude, not comedic talent.
“Hwang. From this moment there is something you need to do.”
“Leave it to me!”
To the supremely confident Hwang I delivered exactly what he needed most.
“Get out of my team right now. This is a football club, not a psychiatric ward. It is not a place that can take in a lunatic like you. I hear medical care in Korea is extremely well developed—how about heading to a psychiatrist instead? They will welcome you with open arms.”
Yu-gyeong blinked, unable to get a single word out, while Hwang In-bae simply sat there with sparkling eyes, like a child expecting a present.
“Yu-gyeong. Translate what I just said. Not a single syllable omitted. Not a single syllable. I will verify it later through Shepin.”
Yu-gyeong opened and closed her mouth repeatedly, clearly wrestling with whether she truly had to deliver those words as they stood. Probably because she was far too kind. Or perhaps because she was far too professional.
In the end I decided to be a little more ruthless.
“Translate it. Quickly, Yu-gyeong. Dealing with this one tumor alone will not solve anything. Including the tumor sitting in front of me today, I am going to root out every last cancer that has taken hold in this club.”
Only then did Yu-gyeong slowly open her mouth. Hwang’s expression hardened at high speed.
What are you freezing up for? Get out of my office. Get out of my team.
There is no place in my club for vermin like you.