Chapter 81
Chapter 81
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 81
Chapter Title: Blooming Lily - 1
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“Captain. Don't send the rookie for interviews next time.”
“Why? He did well.”
“That's the problem, he did too well. My wife cried after reading the article, you know? She told me to bring him home sometime. She wants to make him something delicious.”
“Now I'm getting beaten by the rookie in interview skills too. Sigh. I should retire when I get old.”
“Really? Does that mean I'll be a starter?”
“Yeah. In five years.”
Inside the locker room, as I tie my shoelaces, the seniors' conversation makes my ears burn.
It's a sensitive time right before the game is about to start, yet everyone is busy laughing and joking around.
It was all because of the interview I did two days ago.
“Anyway, I almost cried too. I thought they hated us since they always tease us.”
“Right? I had no idea they thought of us that way.”
“What was it that reporter asked again?”
“Something like, 'Doesn't it feel bad playing with such low-level teammates?' And our rookie told him to shut up.”
“If it were me, I would have agreed. I would have given him a thumbs up, saying he's a reporter who knows ball.”
“The fact that he protected us, saying we're not so bad even when the rookie isn't here... it was so touching.”
Hmm.
Truthfully, I'm a little regretful.
I could have just passed on that question, yet I answered emotionally.
Thanks to that, I can't stand how my face is burning.
The seniors are looking at me with touched eyes; I wish they'd just tease me like they used to.
If I had to make an excuse, I was in a sensitive state.
I knew that people with cameras and microphones liked to make up stories that didn't exist and blow small things out of proportion.
But seeing them run their mouths when they knew nothing was truly sickening.
If it was just me they were ignoring, I could have endured it. But it was hard to bear when they disrespected the seniors and our team.
Whether it was that incompetent commentator who treated the seniors like fools during the Lazio match, the opposing team spouting rude remarks, or the reporter who inflated those stories just to report them.
They were all just running their mouths, knowing nothing.
How dare they disrespect Fiorentina.
If I had played for another team, I never would have stepped onto the field like this, nor would I have scored.
I can guarantee it. The time I spent at Juventus is proof of that.
I came here and met good kids, and I met mentors in Coach Toni and Coach Luca.
Thanks to them, I was able to grow attached to this terrifying land, and I could feel like Florence, which was once unfamiliar, was my home.
It was the same even after joining the first team.
The coach and the seniors all helped me adapt.
They approached me first when I was just a nobody brat and taught me.
Moreover, when I was struggling and couldn't run, everyone ran an extra step in my place.
The reason I can be in this position now is not because I am great.
If it weren't for the shade created by Coach Toni and Coach Luca, I would have dried up and twisted under the hot sun.
If the seniors hadn't become the soil and shared the water, I wouldn't have even had the chance to sprout a seed.
Because I met them, I was finally able to become a flower bud. The fact that I, who was destined to dry up and become dirt, could become a flower bud is because I met Fiorentina.
Well, someone listening might think even that is arrogant. It wouldn't be strange to find it laughable that I compare myself to a flower.
But I think a flower is truly nothing special.
It just catches the eye on the surface.
A flower can do nothing on its own.
A flower cannot suck in nutrients like a root, nor can it become a pillar like a stem. It cannot take on the hard work like a leaf.
All a flower can do is look flashy.
I became a flower not because I knew how to do more than others, but rather because I knew how to do nothing else.
I cannot be a root like the coach, a pillar like the captain, or a leaf like the defenders or midfielders.
I just receive their help and pretend to be flashy on the surface.
But when people who know nothing run their mouths as they please, I felt angry and ashamed at the same time.
I really am nothing.
“Alright, let's head out.”
“Let's go, let's go!”
At the captain's words, everyone gets up one by one, and I also tie my shoelaces tightly and stand up.
In the end, there is only one thing I can do.
Bloom as flashily as possible.
So that the fruit of everyone's labor doesn't look insignificant—that is my job.
“Let's go, let's go!”
I nod, pass through the tunnel, caress the lily, Fiorentina's symbol drawn on my chest, and run out onto the field.
* * *
“Bait him gently. Make him come out emotionally. Got it?”
“Yes—”
Pier Gasman, the coach of Atalanta BC, nodded as he spoke to his players.
It was about Lee Jee-an.
‘Why did he have to rest just one more game.’
The moment he checked the starting lineup, Pier Gasman massaged his temples.
It was because Lee Jee-an, who had been suspected of injury after sitting out the last game, was included in the starting lineup.
From the opposing perspective, Lee Jee-an was a very troublesome player.
It was a natural thing to say. Currently, it's hard to find a player as versatile as Lee Jee-an in the league.
Sometimes he orchestrates the game like a conductor, and sometimes he becomes the crack himself, standing at the forefront.
It was surprising how that young player could show such performance.
Even teams like Juventus or the two Milan clubs couldn't properly stop that Jee-an, so it looked like it would be difficult for his team, which is far below them, to stop him.
That's why it gave him a headache to see the starting lineup.
However, after coming across the interview he did before the game, he was able to grasp at least a small clue.
The clue was that he was still young.
He had made such remarks while preparing for this match against Fiorentina.
Things like, 'Our record against them is better,' or 'As proven in the Lazio match, if you exclude Lee, our players are better,' and so on.
It was a usual psychological battle.
It couldn't even be called a provocation; it was just words to boost the team's morale a bit.
But Lee Jee-an reacted quite emotionally to those words.
It was clear that he took it as a serious provocation because he didn't know anything yet.
Because he was young, he wasn't adept at emotional control.
So, he planned to poke at that a little.
He hoped to provoke him moderately and, if it worked, make him lose his pace. If Lee Jee-an was shaken, Fiorentina was nothing.
“Piiiiik—!”
Because of that, about five minutes after the game started.
One of Atalanta's defenders spoke to Jee-an.
* * *
“You're surprisingly tiny.”
“...?”
“Why couldn't the other teams stop a kid like this?”
He was standing with his back to the defense when he heard a chattering sound from behind.
The tone sounded like a mutter to himself, but anyone could tell it was directed at him.
He glanced back and saw a large, scary-looking defender grinning.
“...”
Hmm.
This is unfortunate.
If he were a little smaller, I would have said something.
He should consider himself lucky.
Tap, tap, tat—
He didn't have the patience to keep listening to a mouth that couldn't live up to its size, so he moved his position.
From the center to the right.
He switched with Romero.
“Where are you going? Will anything change if you move over here?”
But damn.
The cheeky mouth followed him and started running it again.
Was he instructed to man-mark?
He didn't like the obsessive type.
“Why are you so quiet? Are you mad?”
He stuck right behind him, making a “Heh heh” laughing sound, which made his skin crawl even more.
Maybe there are guys like this at Jiu's school too. If there are, he'd have to bring Milenkovic to the school.
Stalking is not right.
“Where are you going now? So annoying.”
He moved his position once more, but the stalker still followed him.
It's so annoying he could die.
Why can't his ears close on their own like his eyes or mouth? He wants to shut them completely.
Can't he just concentrate on the game quietly?
“You have it hard too. You're so busy because you're playing with guys like that. If you weren't there, your team's kids couldn't do anything.”
...Hmm.
It seems it's not going to work.
If he can't close his ears, doesn't he have no choice but to close this stalker's mouth?
“Oh, scary. Looks like you're really mad.”
He gave him a sidelong glance, and the guy just grinned and ran his mouth again. Seeing that made the blood rush to his head.
Thanks to that, his head started spinning faster than usual.
“...”
He looked around, memorizing the positions of the opposing players, and then placed white magnets on the field he pictured in his head.
Based on a 4-4-2 formation, a defensive 4-4-2 with a flat defense and the line in front of it.
Against that, he placed purple magnets on the opposite side.
This was a 4-3-3 formation.
He moved his teammates' current positions directly onto the field in his head.
Then he moved the purple magnets around one by one.
If one purple magnet moves here, the others will move like this...
In response, the white magnets will move in this way...
Soon, the number of hands moving the magnets increased, and he started moving several at once.
The more he did, the hotter his head felt.
The more magnets moved, the hotter it kept getting.
But he couldn't stop his hands.
He was worried for a moment that his scalp would burn and he'd lose his hair like the coach...
“...!”
A refreshing feeling, as if his scalp had been punched open.
At the same time, the magnets he was moving with his own hands began to move on their own. Without him having to move them, all the magnets came to life, breathing and covering the field.
And I was looking down on all of it from above.
“...Huh...?”
At some point, the chattering of the mouth that couldn't live up to its size no longer passed through my ears.
I had no attention to spare for the worthless chattering.
I was too busy observing the movement of the magnets unfolding in my head.
Tap, tap, tat—!
The purple magnet with the number 20 runs to where it needs to go.
Near the halfway line.
It goes down to a point where it can receive the ball.
At the same time, the chain reaction that will occur following my movement unfolds in my head.
While running, I turn my head to check if it matches reality.
It's confirmed.
Paaang—!
I stop the pass coming to me, and push the ball to the right to set it up for my left foot.
And then I strike a long pass.
Booooom—!
Confirming the pass stretching out into the wide space, I turn my body and run forward.
At the same time, I accelerate the simulation unfolding in my head to 1.5x speed and rotate it in several directions.
I adopt the simulation with the best result. Then I step exactly along the path I moved in that simulation.
Tap, tap, tat—!
I run along the right half-space.
Then, around the time Saponara, who received the ball on the left, turns his gaze to the center.
Tap, tap, tat—!
I change direction to the left and charge in.
I cut in diagonally from right to left, centered on the goal face.
At the same time, I shout with my mouth.
“Hey—!!”
Paaang—!
The pass goes forward in the direction I'm moving, and I run to catch it.
I had to run a little faster than what I drew in my head.
The pass was a bit long.
But it was okay.
Because I could revise the plan.
Tap, tap, tat—!
Just a few steps before I meet the ball, I lengthen my stride. It's a position where I can still shoot even with a small angle.
The opponent knows it too.
Zwaaahhh—!
The sound of grass and uniforms rubbing against each other.
The defender who was following me lunged, stretching out his leg.
It was a struggle to block the shot, but instead of shooting, I cut inside once.
Paaang—!
I completely bent the ball with my left foot, and the defender passes me by.
At the same time, I pull back my right foot.
The direction is... the far goal post.
Booooom—!
Lightly, as if passing, I pushed it with the inside of my foot.
Thanks to that, the shot heads exactly where I want it to, precisely.
Shwoooooooong—
Thwack—!!
The net shakes.
But the calculations aren't all done yet.
What comes next is...
Waaaaaaaahhhhh—!!!
Right. This is it.
Only after feeling the massive roar erupt with my body could I stop my head.
After that, I just moved as my body went.
My hand tapped the lily on my left chest, and my legs ran along the stands.