Chapter 57
Chapter 57
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 57
Chapter Title: Being Honest Is Easier - 5
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I actually don't particularly like taking free kicks.
Of course, it's better than a penalty kick, but a free kick isn't all that different.
Especially direct free kicks.
Both penalties and free kicks involve a single person taking responsibility for the shot.
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"No matter how I look at it, the angle with my left foot is no good."
But, right now, it was a little different.
I should have been preparing for the next play instead of just watching Vlahovic get ready for the free kick.
Getting ready to rush in for a second ball, or preparing for a counter-attack.
But, without realizing it, I was just staring blankly at Vlahovic as he placed the ball.
I must have wanted to take it myself.
Especially this free kick.
"You take it."
Did he give it up because I was staring at him with too much desperation? I looked down at the ball in my hands with a bit of a daze. Anyway, since the chance had come to me, I couldn't let it slip away.
"..."
Carefully.
As I was about to place the ball on the ground, I suddenly saw someone's face superimposed over it.
So, after giving the ball a light kiss, I set it down.
I prayed that this ball would bring me luck.
Step... Step...
With the ball placed, I took a few steps back.
Then, I took in the position of the goal and the goalkeeper, and the formation of the defensive wall, all in one glance.
Next to the long line of the defensive wall, I could see the goalkeeper. It was a standard position, trusting the wall to cover one side while he covered the other, and the standard way to beat it was to chip the ball just over the wall.
However... the wall seemed incredibly high.
Is this really 9 meters? It feels a bit close.
Or maybe it just looks high because everyone's so tall.
I don't know.
Can I clear that wall?
Is there another good way...
⚡ SKILL ACTIVATED ⚡
Second Forward (Lv. 1)
[Prediction of the ball's trajectory]
"Peeeeep—!"
However, no time was given for sufficient thought.
The referee blew the whistle, and I had to take this free kick.
With a slightly rushed heart, I checked the defensive wall once more, and suddenly, a gap came into view.
At the same time, a single thought flashed through my mind.
I had rolled on the ground quite a bit today, which had left my uniform damp.
It was because the grass was wet.
The gap that had instantly caught my eye.
And the wet grass.
Those two clues helped me make my decision.
"...Huu."
I took one large breath in,
Tatatat-
and lightly ran toward the ball.
The most important thing when taking a free kick is to relax your body. It's an instinct to unconsciously tense up when shooting a stationary ball.
Suppressing that instinct, I ran lightly toward the ball.
And...
Thwoooooooock—!
As expected, I struck the ball lightly.
I extended my instep fully, but relaxed my foot, impacting the ball as if pressing it.
A feeling of *thwoong*.
Shwaaaaaaaaa-
The struck ball flew low across the ground.
It looked like a ground shot, but it was clearly flying, not rolling.
I could see the patterns on the ball clearly.
It meant it was flying with no spin.
Shwaaaaaaaa-
It dug into the gap beneath the feet of the jumping wall and passed through.
At that moment, I moved to the side.
Because the wall, having finished its jump and landing, had blocked my view of the shot.
Tatatat-
As I moved to the side, my field of view gradually opened up, and the moment the corner of the goal behind the wall came into my sight,
the stadium had already gone quiet.
Thwack—!!
What I saw beyond the wall was... the collapsed goalkeeper and the ball buried in the net.
"Yaaaaaaaah!"
"It went in!!"
At the same time, the seniors started running toward me, raising both arms high.
......It went in.
My free kick... tore through the net?
I couldn't feel it at all.
However...
"You bastard!!"
"You crazy son of a bitch!!"
"To put it in like that, man, this is seriously crazy!"
The rough hands of the seniors who rushed at me forcefully awakened me to the reality of the situation.
This is real.
I really scored a goal.
The me who couldn't hold my ground at the Juventus youth academy and got kicked out... has now become a player who scored a goal against the Juventus first team...
"You bastard! Go on!"
"Go make the fans go crazy!"
The seniors surrounding me pushed me forward.
Where they pushed me to, fans in purple uniforms were cheering and jumping for joy.
"..."
Seeing them, a memory from a few months ago suddenly came to mind. It was when Ji-woo first came to watch my game.
When I scored a goal in that game, Ji-woo was jumping around like that too.
Ji-woo was definitely not here, but in the cheering fans, I could find Ji-woo.
I ran toward those fans and swung my fist, as if pouring out my frustration, and shouted.
"......FORZA—!!!"
There's no shame in falling.
The shame is in falling and not getting back up.
"FORZA—!!!"
I wasn't ashamed of myself.
At least, not right now...
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Maurizio, the CEO of Juventus, bites his lip. His mood was already bad, and to make matters worse, a mosquito next to him was buzzing, making him extremely irritated.
"Wow, look at that! Right there, down below! Wow!"
"You can't stop that. Absolutely can't stop that!"
Two mosquitoes were making a disgusting fuss, pointing at the big screen.
On the big screen, the goal from just before was being replayed.
"Show it one more time... okay. From this angle... wow, I thought it was just a rolled shot, but it was no-spin!"
"When it bounces on the ground, the spin catches forward and it becomes incredibly fast! No, did he even consider the rain that fell before the game?"
"If it's that kid, he would. That kid plays while grasping everything about the field!"
If it weren't for the VVIP seats, I might have told them to shut up. However, since I don't know who they are or where they're from, all Maurizio could do was glare at them.
One of the two mosquitoes, Marco Villaggio, the former head scout of Fiorentina's youth team, lowered his voice and spoke.
"...We should probably lower our voices now, Director."
"Hmm."
At his words, Director Paolo Rossini coughed and nodded.
The two of them had come to see the first team game after watching a U19 match in the same city of Torino, as the timing worked out.
Director Paolo gave a small laugh and said.
"That was the wisest purchase of my life. To think that player's weekly wage is only 4,000 euros. People might point fingers. They'll call it an unfair contract."
"Do you remember, Director. What you said back then. That he'd become a semi-regular for the first team within a year. I honestly thought it was too much of an exaggeration... but he's become an ace, not even a semi-regular."
"That's why you still have a long way to go."
"...You didn't expect him to be this good either, Director."
Director Paolo chuckled.
He wasn't wrong. He had watched youth players for decades and made a living by seeing their potential.
That's how he could make the bold judgment to sign a 16-year-old boy to a 4,000-euro weekly wage contract.
Even so, he hadn't expected this much.
If he had known it would be this much, 4,000 euros? He would have signed him to a long-term contract for several times that amount.
He's standing out much more than Federico Chiesa, who's on the same field right now.
"Anyway, how much are you making thanks to the Director, right now. If you hadn't signed a pro contract quickly... geez."
"If that were the case, your desk would be stuffed in a corner of the office right now."
"Haha, you can say that again."
"What, did I say something wrong? You almost threw away tens of millions of euros by being stingy over 4,000 euros. It's a blessing you weren't kicked out."
"Yes, yes."
Director Paolo chuckled.
Soon, his gaze turned to Federico Chiesa.
Chiesa, a member of Fiorentina, is currently at Juventus on loan.
However, it's practically a transfer. When the loan contract was signed, an obligation-to-buy clause was included in the contract terms, and the condition for that clause to activate is quite low.
It means that if Chiesa performs at a decent level, the full transfer will be completed.
If that transfer is completed, Fiorentina will receive a transfer fee of over 40 million euros from Juventus.
It means they'll earn a astronomical sum of 40 million euros just from developing one youth player well.
Meanwhile, someone next to them is in a position where they have to spend that money because they couldn't manage one youth player properly.
'If only one more year passes...'
Chiesa is expected to gift the team 40 million euros.
But Lee Ji-an was clearly a player who would earn the team even more than that.
How much would that be?
He couldn't dare to expect it. Whatever he expected, it seemed it would be more than that.
However, one thing was clear.
That the 4,000-euro contract would become worth more than 40 million euros.
"Hehe."
A smile spread across Director Paolo's face.
He couldn't help but feel a sense of superiority.
From the fans' perspective, Juventus might be an arch-nemesis, but honestly, from the team's perspective, there's no bigger sucker.
It was the same with Bernardeschi, and with Chiesa.
Now they're even coming around again, waving a bundle of cash to buy Vlahovic.
In that situation, to have found an even more tantalizing item, he must be going crazy right now.
But... who knows.
Whether Juventus can get their hands on even Lee Ji-an.
Although Juventus is the club with the most money within Serie A, once you cross the border, there are clubs with much more money.
Especially that island nation across the sea, the scale of the money they handle is different.
A year from now, Lee Ji-an might be a size that Italy can't even contain.
"After the first half is over, go to the concession stand and get me a hamburger and a beer or something."
"Huh? The concession stand? If you're hungry, you can just eat in the lounge over there."
"Hey, you. Have some conscience. We need to sell at least that much if we want to keep doing business in the future, don't we?"
"Haha. That's true."
Director Paolo of the first team and Marco, the youth director, laughed at the same time.
The two had gotten a promotion in just a few months thanks to that contract that looked into the future.
It was all thanks to that 16-year-old kid.
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After scoring the free kick, I had a hard time.
Because my pounding chest, on the verge of bursting, wouldn't calm down for a moment.
My head kept warning me not to get excited, but my body kept demanding that I move, as if saying, 'What do you know?'
The two kept fighting.
But soon, my head won, and my body won too.
Since it was no good for the two to fight, I made them reconcile by accepting both of their stories.
I wouldn't get excited, but I would run hard.
"Defend! Hold the line!"
"If we can't守住 this, we're the last ones!"
In soccer, the three most dangerous moments are generally considered.
One is the 5 minutes after the start of the game. Another is the 5 minutes before the end. And the last one is right after scoring.
The commonality of these three is that they are times when concentration drops.
Fortunately, our concentration was rising even more than before we scored.
Was it because we had something to protect?
People who have something to protect tend to become stronger than usual.
Shwaaaaaaaa-
"Nice defense!"
Viragi, the captain who had been pushed over in a physical fight, sprang back up and charged again, kicking the ball away with a tackle.
Paaaaaang-!
"Ugh...!"
Son of Milenkovic, Senior, blocked the opponent's shot with his head without hesitation.
Tatatat-!
Saponara, Senior, gritted his teeth and ran toward a ball that anyone could see was going out, and saved it.
And I...
"Ugh...!"
Was rolling on the ground again.
But it was okay.
"You okay, maknae?"
Now there were seniors who reached out a hand to help me up,
"It's nothing."
and I also knew how to get up after falling.
Now, I was even grateful to the guys who made me fall.
If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have learned how to get back up.
No matter how many times I'm knocked down, I will get back up.
"Beep, beeep—!"
And so, in the end, we managed to finish the first half while protecting our one point.
"Huu..."
Not knowing if I was wearing a uniform or a rag, I let out a sigh and headed for the locker room.
As I did, I looked around the stands.
I don't know if it's just my imagination, but many spectators were looking at me.
Receiving the gaze of so many people, and feeling good about it—this was the first time.