What Matters Is the Childhood Friend
The long, blood-soaked battle that had stretched across a hundred and twenty minutes was finally over.
"Hah… so all that's left is penalties?"
At Jorge's words, Messi's face tightened with nerves.
"What if I miss?"
Watching him worry, I said,
"Then your jersey's going up in flames."
"That much I could live with."
Well. Fair enough. Fans burning jerseys was so routine that I wasn't exactly worried about the kit itself.
"On top of that, you'll take an absolute mountain of abuse."
"Ah… that part's worse. Last time I was online I even got hit with family insults and my head just completely left the building…"
I felt bad that Messi had taken those kinds of hits, but I also figured there was nothing for it.
Nobody in this world could be liked by everyone.
People who hated you lashing out was just a natural phenomenon.
Of course, going after someone's family still crossed a line.
"Did you sue?"
"Yeah. The second I saw it."
With keyboard warriors like that, the only real answer was to show them life was not a game.
With a lawsuit.
"After that, people still trash me online, but they leave the family stuff alone."
"Nice."
Well. Even so, you couldn't exactly stop people from cursing you out altogether.
While I was talking with Messi, the side for the shoot-out got decided.
It was the end the Cules had taken over.
Because the Cules owned that half of the ground, it was a sea of purple—and looking at it, I felt a calm settle over me.
These days, just seeing purple is enough to put me at ease.
So the Barcelona players stepped into the shoot-out already holding a psychological edge over the AC Milan players.
Barcelona would go first.
I'd heard somewhere once that if you went first in a shoot-out and scored, your odds of winning jumped dramatically.
I hadn't actually looked at the numbers, so it might not have been strictly true—but I believed it.
If the first kick went in, the AC Milan player taking second would be drowning in the thought that he had to score, and that tension would make a miss more likely.
The whistle cut through the air.
Of course, none of that theory would matter if Ronaldinho, going first, missed.
But we all had faith that if it was Dinho, he was putting it away.
I felt hands clamp hard onto my shoulders as I watched Ronaldinho's back—and then, thankfully, we were allowed to roar.
Dinho had scored.
"Phew~ thank god."
Watching Messi let out a breath of pure relief at the successful PK, I felt the joy rise in me too.
Good. Now our chances of winning just went way up.
With that hope sitting in my chest, Serginho stepped up as AC Milan's first taker.
"In the original timeline, he misses, right?"
In the original history, AC Milan had gone to penalties against Liverpool in the Champions League final.
Serginho, their first taker, had missed—and that miss had gone a long way toward handing Liverpool the title.
I was praying this time would be no different.
Miss it. Same as before.
Whether that desperate wish of mine actually reached him or not, Serginho hammered the post and missed.
"WAAAAAAAAAH!"
"NICE! Thanks for missing!"
Someone was delighted by Serginho's miss—the Cules, of course.
They howled with joy at the failure, and Serginho, hearing every bit of it, dropped his head and thought only one thing.
Ah…
His head completely gone, he trudged back toward the AC Milan players with his chin on his chest. His teammates tried to console him, but Serginho's mind was already in pieces.
Watching that, I made myself a promise.
I would not miss. No matter what.
While I was steeling myself, Messi—our second taker—planted himself in front of the ball with a grim expression.
The moment the referee's whistle blew, he started to move, slow and deliberate.
Watch the keeper!
Messi's plan was simple.
Walk up slowly, see which way the keeper dived, and put the ball the other way.
Of course, it also had a pretty high chance of failing.
If the keeper held his ground until the last possible second and never committed, a rattled Messi would have no choice but to hit a half-hearted shot.
Fortunately, though, AC Milan's Dida dived before Messi struck the ball—and Messi, who had been staring a hole through him, rolled it into the opposite corner.
Watching the net billow, Messi let out a long breath of relief.
"Thank god."
Having buried the PK as if all that worry had never existed, Messi came back to the Barcelona players with confidence written all over his face.
And there were people watching him with dead eyes.
The AC Milan fans.
"We came all this way just to lose?"
"No! It's not over! If we score this one—!"
The ones who still hadn't given up hope fixed desperate eyes on Pirlo, their second taker.
"Please…"
Under the weight of all that longing, the referee's whistle sounded—and Pirlo didn't hesitate. He sprinted straight in and struck.
The ball sang as it flew, and it slipped past the diving keeper into the side of the net.
"Ah… almost."
Barcelona's keeper had come within a hair of the save, but wishing didn't change the result.
The score was 2–1.
Now it was Barcelona's third taker's turn.
Barcelona's third taker was none other than Jorge.
Jorge.
He was the center-back who held down Barcelona's last line.
What he was good at, naturally, was defending.
It had to be—to claim a starting center-back role at Barcelona at the absurdly young age of eighteen, you needed a level of ability that left everyone else behind, and Jorge had it.
As Barcelona's center-back and a pure defender, he brought a long list of strengths to the table.
He had speed that ranked among the best in La Liga, and with a frame that touched two meters and dense, packed muscle underneath it, he dominated physical battles against any opponent.
That alone would have been more than enough—but Jorge still had one more weapon left.
A monstrous shot.
Goalkeepers who had tried to stop Jorge's strikes had broken their wrists; the power behind his shooting was something that defied imagination.
And that power carried straight over to penalties.
Even from open play, a Jorge strike was brutally hard—though not impossible—to save. But a PK from eleven meters out? Stopping that was simply not an option.
Once Coach Frank understood that, he put Jorge on penalty practice.
The results were a total success.
Jorge's shot already had enough force from distance to wreck a keeper's wrist; from eleven meters, even if the goalkeeper got a hand to it, the ball had enough raw power to punch straight through and go in anyway.
Knowing that, Coach Frank had, after some thought, locked the still-young Jorge in as the third taker.
"Even if you aim it right at the keeper, he won't be able to hold the power. The ball—and him with it—will end up in the back of the net. So the third taker has to be Jorge."
The day before the Champions League final, Coach Frank had already made the call.
Coach Frank's prediction was spot on.
Milan's Dida won the mind game against Jorge and got a hand to the ball—but the power was so overwhelming that it blew straight through his gloves.
Just like that, Jorge buried the PK.
"Hoooooooooooooo!!"
Watching Jorge celebrate the successful kick, Dida could only think one thing.
This was unfair.
What kind of ball is that…
And he wasn't the only one thinking it.
Even Barcelona's own fans were looking at each other like this had to be illegal.
"No… he fully saved that and it just powered straight through."
The Cules were in pure awe. The AC Milan fans had gone pale.
"That's… a foul, right?!"
"He clearly stopped it and it still went in? That's just not fair…"
And the man who had hit that shot was currently collecting praise from his Barcelona teammates—myself and Messi included.
"If the body's strong enough, the head doesn't have to work so hard… so that applies to football too, huh?"
I found myself remembering something I'd heard in my past life and arriving at a small enlightenment of my own.
"Waaah…"
Messi could only manage pure admiration.
Dinho and the rest of the Barcelona players wore the looks of men thoroughly pleased with their lot.
What a reassuring guy to have around.
El Clasico is going to feel a lot easier every time from now on.
And Jorge, the man who had just stunned everyone, was simply thinking,
Hmm. Has my power gotten even stronger?
He was busy wondering whether his own strength had leveled up again.
With Jorge converting, AC Milan's third taker—Tomasson—was in a must-score situation.
I can do this. I can do this.
Hypnotizing himself, Tomasson struck the ball half on autopilot—and scored.
It was 3–2 as the fourth takers' turn arrived.
Barcelona's fourth, Iniesta, wore a calm expression as he stepped up and struck cleanly—and put it away without drama.
Then came AC Milan's turn.
Their fourth taker was Kaká.
Kaká moved carefully, then struck the ball with the inside of his foot—and the net bulged. Goal.
In the end, nothing was settled—and it came down to the fifth takers.
Barcelona's fifth was me.
Score and become a hero. Miss and become the villain. Standing in front of the ball under that weight, I took a deep breath.
If I put this away, we win the Champions League.
I was tasting the sweet dream of a Champions League title—and right now, right here, I could turn that dream into reality.
Even knowing that, my feet refused to move easily.
And if I miss? Then it goes all the way to AC Milan's fifth, and we could still lose.
Negative thoughts chained themselves one after another, and my steps only got heavier—
until a familiar voice cut through everything and reached my ears.
"Lee Junho! If you miss, don't even think about eating dinner tonight!"
I lifted my head toward the sound and found my current girlfriend—and the woman who would one day be my wife—Park Jieun.
"Pfft. Right. Guess I'd better score if I want dinner."
Her words dissolved the tension. Feeling my body ease, I walked toward the ball at an unhurried pace—and without forcing power into it, I lifted it lightly, almost gently, into the air.
The ball floated, slow and lazy—but Dida had already guessed the direction and committed to his dive, so all he could do was watch it go past.
Ah…
A moment that was too short for some people and an eternity for others slipped by.
The ball found the dead center of the goal and shook the net—and in the same instant, a roar filled Istanbul from end to end.
"Hooooooooooo!!!"
And through all that noise, I ran.
I had been sure my legs were completely empty, but somehow the strength found me, and my body obeyed every order I gave it.
"H-hey! What— Lee Junho?!"
In no time at all I had reached her—my flustered girlfriend, who had no idea what to do with herself—and I pulled her into my arms.
"Thank you."
At my words, Park Jieun smiled and answered simply,
"Yeah."