vs Anyang Purples (2)
The match settled into a pattern that made you want to mutter, of course.
Seongjin Hanul FC — the strongest side in K League 2 — kept trying to punch through a defensive wall that could only be described as thick. Anyang Purples' back line simply would not break.
And inside that shape, the sharpest spear in K League 2 could not drive a hole through it.
Thwack!
Cha Jeong-woo drove forward with the ball and had it stripped off him.
The instant it was gone, Anyang Purples' counterattack was already live.
BOOM!
A long ball launched without a heartbeat of hesitation. Waiting at the end of it was Anyang Purples' main gun — Carlos Pereira.
Tak! Thwack!!
Carlos Pereira kicked the ball a touch long ahead of himself without a flicker of doubt and tore after it.
That burst of acceleration fell to Baek Hyeon to deal with.
Thud!!
Baek Hyeon threw himself into a physical duel, driving his shoulder in, trying by any means to shove the Brazilian off his line.
But Baek Hyeon was still a body under construction — a prospect caught between prospect and full professional. Gifted in the air, smart in his defending, clean on the ball… and still, against this opponent—
WHUMP!!
"Ugh…!"
—asking him to handle Carlos Pereira, a man putting up elite numbers in active K League 1, was simply too much.
Sliiide!
Crack!!
The silver lining was that even forcing that physical contact bought time. Enough time for most of Seongjin Hanul FC's defenders to recover — and more than enough for Nam Gi-cheol and Gu Bon-cheol, who needed to slide in beside Baek Hyeon and form a cooperative block, to get back.
Gu Bon-cheol's sliding tackle beat the ball clear first; Carlos Pereira went down after it and immediately threw both arms up.
Foul?
That was the gesture. The referee was absolute.
No foul.
At the signal, Carlos Pereira swallowed the irritation as quickly as it had appeared and took Baek Hyeon's hand up off the turf.
A familiar scene. Claim the foul first, ask questions later. Even world-class players try it more often than you'd think — if the referee bites even once, you cash the free kick. Unfortunately for him, the tackle had been too clean; the appeal had almost no chance of landing.
Once the ball had rolled out of play, the commentators used the pause to restate the shape of the match.
"It's an extremely hard-fought game out there."
"It is. Fundamentally Seongjin Hanul FC is holding the ball and building possession, but they keep getting shut down on the wide breakthroughs."
"Seongjin Hanul FC does play through the middle with short combinations, but at their core they're still a side that leans on the flanks. Ha Seung-pyo and Cha Jeong-woo — those two outstanding wingbacks are the ones meant to carry that load."
"Even when the ball does get out there, though, they can't keep it all the way through. Especially with Cha Jeong-woo, their primary penetration threat, getting bottled up like this — Kang Si-woo up top has nothing to work with!"
"Anyang Purples, by contrast, are extremely simple. Win it, then just give it forward."
"With a striker like Carlos Pereira, that's more than enough. Springy, seriously fast, strong — once he gets up to speed on the break, he's a nightmare to stop."
"He's rough around the edges for a Brazilian, and that's exactly why Baek Hyeon is having such a hard time containing him."
"Still, Baek Hyeon, Gu Bon-cheol, and Nam Gi-cheol have been stepping up aggressively to snuff things out whenever the danger comes. But if this keeps up, you have to worry about Gu Bon-cheol and Nam Gi-cheol's legs."
Baek Hyeon, thanks to his excellent positioning, often conserved energy in defensive phases. Gu Bon-cheol and Nam Gi-cheol, on the other hand, kept stepping out ahead of the back four to shield it — and their stamina was starting to get chewed up.
In a way it was almost funny. Nam Gi-cheol was the veteran and Baek Hyeon the prospect, yet their roles felt faintly inverted.
But that was football. The gifts you have that others don't, the gifts others have that you don't — those gaps show up between veterans and prospects just the same. Gu Bon-cheol and Nam Gi-cheol had spent their entire professional careers on a rugged, no-frills style of play. Baek Hyeon, even as a prospect, had always been the clever defender who made the right call at the right moment.
At this rate, though, the legs were only going to keep burning. And so Feltner decided to draw the knife.
In a brief window with the ball out of play, Feltner called Cha Jeong-woo over from the touchline.
The moment Cha Jeong-woo saw the gesture he scampered over and stuck his head in close. Talk fast — that much was clear.
"(Switch the markers! Baek Hyeon still can't win against Pereira! Swap Baek Hyeon and Gu Bon-cheol's roles! Even if we lose a step on pace, we have to change it now!)"
Cha Jeong-woo heard him out, and then…
"Huh?"
His German was nonexistent. His English wasn't much better.
Thok!
Feltner clapped a palm to his forehead in exasperation — then had no choice but to send Cha Jeong-woo back out. Play was live again.
Cha Jeong-woo sprinted back into a defensive shape as the ball came infield.
And then—
Thump!
—it arrived at Carlos Pereira's feet.
A momentary crack in the defensive line. For a man fighting for the K League 1 golden boot, that crack was more than wide enough to see.
WHUMP!!
Carlos Pereira simply powered through, bulldozing Baek Hyeon aside. Baek Hyeon was shoved off far too easily.
"Ugh…!?"
The line blown open in an instant. Nam Gi-cheol, beside him, tried to scramble across and cover—
One step. Too late.
BOOM!
Whoooosh!!
Min Jun-seok threw his body at it, but the ball beat him into the net. The moment it kissed the mesh, Carlos Pereira was already sprinting toward the away end to soak up the roar of the Anyang Purples fans.
In the middle of that noise, Gu Bon-cheol went to Baek Hyeon, and Nam Gi-cheol went to No Geon-woo — both offering quiet words.
"Sorry…"
"It's fine. You're just still light in the physical battles."
"I need to hit the weights…"
"For a center-back, it's essential."
Gu Bon-cheol, steadying a prospect's self-reproach.
"That one was an unsaveable angle."
"No — my reaction was too slow."
"Don't sweat it. I'm telling you, that was a genuine unsaveable angle."
Nam Gi-cheol, covering for Min Jun-seok's mistake.
And in the middle of all that—
"Hey — come here a second!"
Seo Dong-hyeon, who could manage English, dashed over after hearing the manager out. As the message landed, the defensive unit nodded as one, the way people do when they've been expecting exactly this.
Even during training mini-games, Feltner was constantly adjusting tactics on the fly and feeding them to the players. Plan B, Plan C, Plan D… stack the finer variants on top and the number of plans living in Feltner's head was genuinely enormous. The second something frayed inside one of them, he pulled the next one off the shelf.
The players knew that better than anyone. Which was why they trusted him — completely.
The second the opening goal went in, a scream tore straight out of my mouth.
"Aaaaaaagh…!"
"Do-a."
One word from Yu-gyeong unnie shut me up again — but the irritation was still boiling.
Why was everyone just standing there gawking? What were they even doing?
"Uuuggghhh…"
"Weren't you saying today we'd probably lose?"
"That's one thing. Wanting to win is another."
"Haa… You never even acted like this in your teenage years."
Yu-gyeong unnie poked my cheek over and over, delivering a lecture that wasn't quite a lecture.
"Calm down a little and watch."
"Unnie doesn't love football the way I do, so of course you can't feel what I'm feeling."
"That's fair — but you really did get way too heated. It's only one goal."
Only one goal, sure. My legs still wouldn't stop shaking.
I sat there with my knees rattling and forced myself to look at the pitch — and something in the flow had changed.
What do I mean by that?
Suddenly the defending that hadn't been working… was working.
And at the center of it, only one factor was in play.
The markers had switched.
Baek Hyeon, who had been sprinting all over the place as the primary marker, was now mostly joining the attack — and Gu Bon-cheol was the one on Pereira.
Was that even allowed? Gu Bon-cheol wasn't supposed to be able to live with Pereira's pace in the first place.
Putting Baek Hyeon on Pereira had been about that speed gap to begin with. Absolute pace was never Gu Bon-cheol's calling card. Intelligent defending, quietly strong physical play, the ability to organize the line — those were his strengths.
So how was it better to put a man like that on a burner like Pereira?
But my eyes were already answering the question for me.
Carlos Pereira — the Brazilian striker torching K League 1 — could not properly get past Gu Bon-cheol alone.
And that wasn't all.
With Gu Bon-cheol peeling off and Baek Hyeon stepping into the attack, the offensive side suddenly started to click. Baek Hyeon was a ball-playing defender, sure, but had he ever been this involved going forward?
What exactly was the difference? As a complete layperson I couldn't see it — but it didn't matter.
"Goooooo!!! At least force a draw before the half is oooover!!!"
What mattered was that we'd seized the run of the game.