A National Team Debut I Knew Nothing About (1)
Luton Town FC.
No Korean player had ever played here before, and the club hardly enjoyed worldwide recognition, but I loved playing here.
Well, for starters, I just hit double digits in both goals and assists.
Good form always had a way of lifting a man's spirits.
This season, my personal tally stood at twelve goals and fourteen assists. It was the return I'd produced playing the 'Big' in our 4-4-2 'Big and Small' strike partnership. The 'Small' half was Dominic, the very guy who had been hollering at me on the pitch earlier to get back on my feet.
Back at the start of the season—right after our promotion from the third tier to the second—things hadn't exactly been smooth sailing. True to the reputation of the EFL Championship, a league whispered to be even more brutal and unforgiving than the Premier League, opposing defenders resorted to every dark art imaginable to shackle me inside the penalty box. Naturally, the criticism trickled in at first. I was chipping in with the odd goal, sure, but compared to the dominant displays I had put on in EFL League One, it felt like a modest slump.
Yet Manager Gordon Morton never lost faith in me.
Instead, the gaffer put me through an even more grueling regimen than the year before, drilling me relentlessly on how to cushion aerial balls and nod them down for my teammates. I'd never been accused of being a slow study, so I took everything I was taught on the training pitch and translated it straight into matchday reality. The results were undeniable. In fact, over seventy percent of my assists arrived in the latter half of the campaign, right when my heading technique truly evolved.
Once I adjusted to the rough-and-tumble tempo of the league, the goals began flowing in earnest as well. Including today's clash against Stoke City, I had netted twelve times—and almost all of them were match-winners. My clutch gene had sharpened noticeably compared to my early days.
The only slight snag is that I'm completely a header-only one-trick pony.
Just as the local radio broadcast blaring through the car speakers was eagerly pointing out, every single goal and assist to my name this season had come off my skull. Not one off my boots.
When I first threw caution to the wind and flew to England dreaming of becoming a professional footballer, passing a trial on a whim and earning promotion in my debut season had felt like an absolute fairy tale. But continuing like this had an obvious ceiling. A one-dimensional target man might bully defenders in League One or even scrape by in the Championship, but against the elite of the Premier League, I wouldn't stand a prayer.
This wasn't just idle paranoia. When we clashed with West Ham in the League Cup the previous season, their backline had effectively neutralized me from minute one, turning me into an invisible ghost for ninety minutes. Naturally, we were thoroughly dismantled.
I still had an ocean to cross. Getting complacent over one decent campaign was out of the question when there were so many milestones left to chase. Deep down, I had a hunch that if I spent a few more seasons commanding a starting spot at Luton Town and acclimatizing to the game, I could reach heights far beyond my current level.
...Well, not that agonizing over it is going to magically fix anything.
My footwork was so utterly hopeless that the manager and the entire coaching staff had long since thrown their hands up in defeat. Sure, I still went through the motions during technical drills, but everyone knew I lacked even the barest foundation to improve. The only realistic card I held was to polish my aerial craft until it was second to none.
Though that wasn't a problem for today.
First, home and bed.
We had a modest end-of-season bash scheduled for tomorrow, so tonight called for uninterrupted rest.
"...Ugh, my head..."
The hour hand on the round wall clock was already creeping past ten.
I hadn't touched a single drop of alcohol throughout the grinding months of the campaign, but with the season finally wrapped up, I must have let my guard down at the party, gulping down whatever was shoved into my hands until the lights completely went out.
It looked like the inner circle had carried the revelry into an after-party. When I dragged myself up from the sofa, Dominic, Luke, Jackson, and Mick Hughes were sprawled in absolute disarray across the living room carpet and the spare bed.
A quick glance around confirmed I was in the flat belonging to Teddy, our club captain and central midfield anchor. As fellow bachelors, a few of us had crashed here often enough for the place to feel familiar.
"Sleep well, Han?"
"...Thanks to you, boss."
Following the gravelly voice toward the kitchen, I found Teddy standing alone over the stove, stirring a pot of what vaguely resembled a stew. Judging by the foul, pungent aroma wafting from it, it was probably supposed to be healthy. The sheer stench of it would wake the dead, let alone the corpses passed out in the living room.
"I only rolled out of bed a bit ago myself. Get some of this down your gullet first. Sort out your stomach."
"...I appreciate the thought, truly, but I'll pass."
The broth, true to expectations, tasted revolting. That was the price of having a stingy captain who, despite living the single life on a decent wage, refused to hire a personal housekeeper. Bloody hell.
"Bloody hell, though. You were incredible yesterday."
"Pardon?"
"Don't play dumb with me. When the hell did you practice all that?"
"What, did I hit on some girl with smooth lines or something?"
What on earth did I get up to last night?
"You honestly don't remember?"
"Not a single thing."
"You challenged all of us to a crossbar challenge and a free-kick shootout! And you bloody swept the board! Hit the target with every single strike!"
"...What?"
That was impossible.
My reputation for having lead feet wasn't some running inside joke. I had earned a dozen unflattering nicknames simply because I couldn't reliably strike a stationary dead ball. Yet he was claiming I'd beaten the entire squad—including Teddy and Dominic, who possessed two of the cleanest ball-striking techniques at the club?
And not because everyone was hammered and scuffing their shots either, but because I had put away every single attempt?
"There's no way on earth that happened. Teddy, are you sure you're sober?"
A sane man would never utter such nonsense. Sure, our captain wasn't the sort to spin tall tales, but the residual liquor had to be talking for him.
"I'm completely sober, mate. Barely touched the hard stuff, actually. You really have zero memory of it? Look right there on the counter. That's the bottle the lads bought you for winning."
Following his point, there sat an expensive bottle of spirits neatly boxed on the edge of the dining table right beside the pot of stew.
"It's... actually real..."
My brain stalled into complete confusion.
"Should I start knocking back pints before matches from now on?"
"Hearing you sound exactly like Dominic reminds me why you two get along so well."
"Come on, that's a bit harsh..."
"What's that supposed to mean?! You should be dropping to your knees in gratitude if anyone puts you on my level!"
Nobody had heard him sneak in, but Dominic was already slumping into the kitchen, his bleary eyes proving he was still half in the bag.
"Hey, watch your mouth," I shot back. "You only finished third in the league's scoring charts because of me."
"Who cares about that garbage! I'm not a pure striker, I'm a midfielder! The Assist King! Dominic Moss! That's the title I wanted!"
The inner workings of this guy's psyche were so bizarre that words regularly failed me.
Granted, the gaffer had repurposed him from a natural attacking midfielder into the agile second striker of our Big and Small tandem, but after racking up that many goals, wouldn't any normal player want to keep the run going? If he hated sitting third in the scoring table so much, he could gladly transfer those stats to my name. My agent would have had a field day leveraging them at the wage negotiation table.
"If I'd known you could strike a ball like that, the gaffer would've pushed me back into an attacking midfield role ages ago! Why the hell didn't you ever show that off during the season?"
"How should I know, you idiot?"
If I had known I could do that, I'd have swept the Golden Boot and the playmaker awards in one breath and had pundits hailing me as the Championship's answer to Thierry Henry or Harry Kane.
"Alright, settle down, both of you. Dominic, eat some of this."
"...Be right back, need the loo."
Like an eel greased with oil, Dominic slipped right past the doorframe and vanished. Left on the counter was a lone, abandoned bowl of health soup.
So that's how you dodge it.
In certain survival instincts, Dominic was undeniably a cut above me.
Letting out a defeated sigh, I lifted my spoon and began forcing down the unidentifiable sludge. Its flavor was something my palate never wished to revisit.
Luton Town FC's training ground.
With the offseason in full swing, the grounds were completely desolate, save for a lone security guard on duty.
"Han! Magnificent shift you put in the other day."
"Thank you, sir."
"What brings you down here today, then? You ought to be putting your feet up."
"I won't be long. Just had a couple of things I wanted to check."
Truth be told, I had strolled over to the complex dressed in oversized casual clothes and dragging indoor slippers. The plan was merely to swap into boots in the dressing room and strike a few balls.
Unless the entire locker room had fallen victim to a collective hallucination, it meant I truly had struck a ball with genuine technical brilliance yesterday. My mind had been racing with wild, giddy hopes—what if all those relentless technical drills had suddenly coalesced, cracking open my latent potential in a single burst?
Indulging in that sweet fantasy, I laced up my boots and stepped onto the lush pitch.
"Phew..."
Setting the official match ball down about thirty yards out from the goal, I measured my run-up with steady backward paces. Calming my breathing, I drove forward and swung my leg.
THUMP!
The ball skyrocketed into the clouds, sailing completely over the netting behind the goal and vanishing into the empty terraces.
"...Of course. As if."
Still unable to let the delusion die, I tried dribbling with clumsy touches before pulling the trigger, then set up the return-pass rebounder to take shots on the bounce. Out of dozens of attempts, barely a handful found their way inside the frame of the goal.
In the end, my grand awakening was nothing more than wishful daydreaming.
Then what the bloody hell actually happened yesterday?
Resigning yesterday's drunken antics to the bin of unsolved mysteries, I resolved to enjoy my hard-earned holiday.
I briefly entertained the idea of flying back to Korea to visit family, but my parents had already departed on a cross-country road trip across the United States, and my younger brother was stationed out in the Middle East for work. In the end, 'holiday' simply meant holing myself up inside my flat near Kenilworth Road.
I wasn't the traveling type anyway, bearing virtually none of my parents' wanderlust. Splurging money hand over fist also felt irresponsible, given that I was still bound to the contract I'd signed back when we were down in the third tier. While the wage was considerably higher than an ordinary corporate salary, throwing cash around still made me wince.
Of course, having secured promotion the year before last and wrapped up this campaign with stellar numbers, my agent would surely negotiate a handsome pay rise. For the record, I had already made it abundantly clear that a transfer was entirely off the table.
A few lower-table Premier League outfits had sniffed around with tentative inquiries, but I had neither the desire nor the readiness to leave. Packing my bags now would be a spit in the face to Manager Gordon Morton, who had forged me into an aerial juggernaut, and to the loyal supporters of Luton Town FC. More crucially, I had zero confidence that a player with my glaring flaws could survive, let alone thrive, in the Premier League. Unless my ball manipulation improved by leaps and bounds, moving up was suicide.
"...Aish, damn it all."
Back to square one.
Cooped up inside all day, the barbs my teammates had lobbed at me over the season kept echoing through my skull like a broken record.
'How on earth do your head and your feet belong to the same body?'
'Mate, you can curve a cushioned header into the top corner, but you can't pass the ball five yards in a straight line along the grass?'
'...Han, I'm convinced your feet are under a generational curse.'
I was a player scouted and signed purely on the strength of my heading prowess. Contrary to popular assumptions, having no ground game had rarely caused me genuine distress on the pitch. Even so, hearing those jabs day in and day out was enough to prick the professional pride of any footballer.
"Should I just bite the bullet and practice my technique?"
To be completely honest, I had barely dedicated any time to foot drills during the season. Just adapting to the league's grueling physical demands while sharpening my primary weapon had eaten up every ounce of stamina I possessed. But with roughly a month of downtime ahead of me, taking a week's rest before throwing myself into intensive ball-work didn't sound like the worst idea in the world.
Barring any unforeseen interruptions, that was the mental roadmap I laid out.
That is, until my front door was kicked wide open, and my agent barged into the living room, shrieking at the top of his lungs.
"Hey! You made the squad list for the international friendlies! You're playing for the national team, you bastard!"
Wait, what?
Me... on the national team?
A surge of overwhelming awe swelled within my chest.