You've Got to Use Your Head in Football (1)

"Han, there you are. Splendid work today."

Steiger Reno, head coach of the South Korean national football team, greeted me inside the meeting room adjacent to our team quarters. He was a veteran manager with a full mane of silver hair, radiating the exact same effortless charisma I had so often seen on television.

When the Korea Football Association first announced they were hiring a second-division manager to lead the national squad, I had honestly wondered if they had lost their minds. Yet perhaps he was the kind of tactician whose talents truly blossomed on the international stage rather than in the grind of club league play; his track record in Korea was nothing short of sterling. Back-to-back Asian Cup titles and a ticket to the World Cup Round of 16 spoke for themselves.

Perhaps for that very reason, as a newly minted international receiving my first senior call-up, the mere sight of the gaffer made me stiffen up entirely. I lowered myself into the chair opposite him, moving with cautious hesitation.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Why so tense? Where did all that swagger go from halftime, when you practically begged me to just trust you for one more half?"

"…Did I really say that, sir?"

"Han, to be frank, I drafted you into the squad to secure our aerial dominance. Judging strictly by your performance in the first half, you were a complete failure. But I am not the sort of manager who turns a blind eye to a player bold enough to promise he can deliver another dimension. Especially not when it is his senior international debut."

He paused to take a calm sip of his black coffee.

"And so, placing my faith in a lad who couldn't win a single header and struggled all through the first half, I deployed you as a lone striker in the second half to test this 'other dimension' of yours."

Wait, I couldn't win headers against Turkmenistan?

No matter how I turned it over in my mind, something wasn't adding up.

I might look unassuming, but I was a one-tool header specialist who had finished as the top goalscorer in an entire league. Granted, it was in EFL League One—the English third tier—but there was no way on earth I should have been muscled out of the air by center-backs from an Asian side.

Regardless of the doubts gnawing at me, Coach Reno pressed on.

"At any rate, you passed my test with flying colors. Dominating the air would have been plenty, but a striker standing nearly 190 centimeters who can carve through defenses with that kind of dribbling and finish so clinically? Exceptional. Your aerial play was somewhat lacking today, but given that it was your first cap, that much is understandable."

With him heaping such glowing praise on me, if I suddenly blurted out, 'To be honest, Coach, I don't remember a single thing,' getting sent for medical scans would be the least of my problems. They'd probably ship me straight off to a psych ward for an evaluation, wondering if I had developed early-onset dementia.

People often said that pushing the human body to its absolute limits starved the brain of oxygen and caused blackouts. Had the sheer anxiety of my debut driven me to push myself that brutally?

Yet right now, my physical condition didn't feel remotely like someone who had just run ninety minutes of international football. I felt perfectly fine. Completely whole, in fact.

If the heroic exploits the coach was describing were true, my muscles should have seized with cramps at least twice over. But for some reason, there wasn't so much as a dull ache in either of my calves.

"Ahem. Dear me. It seems I've kept an exhausted lad chatting far too long."

"Not at all, Coach. I'm fine."

Evidently, my chaotic inner turmoil had bled onto my face.

"No, no. After running like that today, you need your rest. To put it simply, you will be starting against Japan."

"…Thank you, sir."

"It was commendable how you adjusted your approach on your own when the headers weren't falling for you, but I still want to see the headers you produce in the league on the international pitch as well."

"I do know how to head a ball, Coach."

"Indeed. That confidence is splendid. I look forward to the next match. Let us just say your struggles in the air were lingering fatigue from the long flight over. You're dismissed."

And so, wrapped in a haze of bewilderment, I made my way toward the living quarters.

Fortunately, I hadn't forgotten the room number Lee Taeha had mentioned earlier. I slowly climbed the stairs until I stood before the door, then slid the keycard for Room 303 into the slot and stepped inside.

Against the booming cadence of match commentary and the roar of a stadium crowd coming from the screen, Lee Taeha greeted me with a grin.

"Perfect timing! I was just watching today's highlights on the telly."

So what was playing on that massive flat screen right now was the very debut match I had zero recollection of.

I was going to lose my bloody mind.

Everyone on the planet knew about my debut except me. A seven-year-old kid sitting in the stands today probably had a better grasp of what happened out there than I did.

"Go get cleaned up first. It's recorded anyway, so we can run it back whenever you want."

Taking his advice, I dumped my meager luggage—a solitary backpack brought over from England was all I had—fished out a pair of loungewear, and stepped into the bathroom.

The second I stripped off my kit, the faint scent of shampoo and soap wafted from my hair. It only served to hammer home the undeniable reality that I had indeed played today. My mind swirling with uneasy thoughts, I showered quickly and changed.

Once I was ready for bed, Lee Taeha, who was leaning against the headboard while casually swinging his legs, looked over at me.

"Oh, by the way, do you have any specific routines? Like refusing to watch your own match highlights before bed, or turning in early?"

"No, not at all. Nothing like that."

"Great. Then come sit down and watch your handiwork. Whenever you have a match where everything clicks, you need to burn it into your brain. Seeing the pitch from a tactical overhead angle is a completely different world compared to what you see down there on the grass."

"Did you do that too, Taeha-ssi?"

"You were calling me Taeha-hyung easily enough earlier, so why the sudden distance? Just call me Hyung."

"…Ah. Right. Yes, Hyung."

What in the world did I actually do out on that pitch?

Setting aside my confusion, Lee Taeha—no, Taeha-hyung—chatted briefly about his own international debut before rewinding the match highlights back to kickoff.

"To be completely honest, you were fairly rubbish in the first half. I actually wondered if you were just an arrogant kid who was all talk."

Watching the first-half footage, I had no rebuttal.

I was credited with an assist in the twelfth minute, but in reality, the cross had merely brushed against a few strands of my hair. If anything, Jeong Sang-hoon, the winger who delivered the ball, had every right to feel robbed of a solo goal. And from that moment on, I simply failed to win a single aerial duel. I couldn't knock the ball down for runners, nor could I generate a threatening header on frame. It looked like an exact, sickening replica of our FA Cup tie against West Ham.

What made it infinitely worse was that our opponents weren't Premier League regulars like West Ham, but Turkmenistan—a team ranked more than fifty spots below South Korea in the FIFA rankings.

To think that clumsy figure was supposed to be me. It was downright humiliating.

"So the first half ended as a fairly dull affair. But then, back in the locker room, you looked right at me and the gaffer, told us you knew exactly what tactics ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠were needed for the second half, and practically begged us not to substitute you."

"……Ah… I did, did I…?"

There was no way in hell.

I was the type of player who diligently executed whatever tactical instructions were handed down from the coaching staff. I would never step forward and demand responsibilities outside my remit. Especially if the tactical shift required dribbling through traffic and breaking presses with nimble footwork—that was the exact role I should have stayed ten miles away from.

"Honestly, right then, I thought you were barking mad. Just like in the first half, you'd resolved every single challenge in your career solely with your head."

"Yes, I always have."

"So when you demanded the ball played straight to your feet along the carpet, I was flabbergasted. But since it was your debut, and the gaffer has a soft spot for players with that kind of hunger, we decided to give you a chance. And then…"

The 'me' who strode onto the pitch for the second half was an entirely different human being in every aspect save for physical dimensions.

Dribble, pass, dribble.

Skills and maneuvers that had never once existed in my repertoire were unfolding across the pitch with fluid grace. Occasionally, a slightly unrefined touch slipped in, but even those awkward moments were leagues ahead of anything I was normally capable of.

Bulldozing through defensive lines like Wayne Rooney in his prime by exploiting sheer physical mass was just the baseline. I was threading incisive through-balls into corridors that were barely visible even from the stadium cameras, and leaving two markers utterly flat-footed with deft first touches off the deck—the exact facet of my game I was criticized for day in and day out.

To put it simply, I had filmed an entire career highlight reel in forty-five minutes of football.

Above all, the thunderbolt uncorked just before the final whistle—a shot that rose on a laser-straight trajectory before ripping directly into the top-corner Yashin Zone—was an execution I could never, under any circumstances, have pulled off on my own.

"Struck dumb, are you? Even looking back at it yourself, you realize how utterly unplayable you were today, don't you?"

"Uh, yeah. Seeing it on tape… it's honestly ridiculous."

It was. It was completely absurd.

Because that wasn't me.

It sounded like the ravings of a madman, but that was the undeniable truth. There was no universe in which I possessed that kind of technique.

After sitting through several replays of an international debut I couldn't remember, my eyelids began to grow heavy. I nodded off against the pillows.

Please… don't tell me that when I wake up, the exact same thing is going to happen again?

I prayed with everything I had that it wouldn't.

Fortunately, by the morning of the clash against Japan, I was completely myself.

In the routine physical screenings conducted before training, all my vitals comfortably exceeded normal baselines when compared against the physiological data provided by my club. During the intra-squad scrimmage, although I was pushed back slightly by our Bundesliga-based center-back pairing, I still managed to bag a goal and an assist across two short halves, earning a firm nod of approval from the gaffer.

Naturally, during the squad rondos and technical shooting competitions, I never once surrendered last place. Thanks to that, the senior players mercilessly poked fun at me, joking that my hype bubble had already burst.

Most of the squad simply chalked it up to a classic Guti phenomenon—assuming that the Turkmenistan fixture had just been "one of those days" where the stars aligned for me.

The atmosphere inside the team coach heading to Seoul World Cup Stadium in Sangam was raucous and lively.

"You lads do know that if we bottle this match, our back-to-back Asian Cup titles won't mean squat, right?"

Taeha-hyung, our captain, delivered the warning with a roguish grin, addressing both me and Park Soo-an, the two newest faces in the squad.

"Of course, Hyung. We have to win at all costs."

"If we lose, I don't think we'll even make it out of Seoul in one piece."

"Hey, hey, Taeha! Quit terrorizing the youngsters. A thirty-year-old veteran shouldn't be messing with the boys like that."

"Why not? It's good fun."

Trivial banter bounced back and forth across the aisle. It was likely the senior players' considerate way of helping us shake off our debut nerves.

"I'm dead serious, though. If we lose to Japan, we are genuinely fucked."

…They are being considerate, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠right?

Inside the locker room, minutes before kickoff.

"What is our tactical concept for today?"

"Uh… aggressive, high-pressing football designed to overpower them physically, sir."

"Good. Concise and accurate. You understand your duties well. Which means you both know your roles are exceptionally vital today."

Just as the captain had done, the manager pulled aside me—having debuted five days ago—and Park Soo-an, our defensive midfielder earning his first cap, to deliver a final set of instructions.

"Right, let's head out. I plan on staying in this managerial post in Korea for another ten years, so give this Korea-Japan derby everything you have. I refuse to go down in history as the manager who lost to Japan."

With those half-serious words seasoned by his five years of navigating Korean football culture, we marched out through the tunnel and stepped onto the pitch.

Just as the commentator noted, Japan's chronic physical shortcomings had not been fully remedied outside of their center-backs, even with an increasing number of mixed-heritage players in their ranks. Furthermore, with the expansion of World Cup qualification berths, South Korea would soon have to break down low-block, two-bank defensive lines against physical Southeast Asian opponents. This match was an early tactical inoculation.

The instant the whistle blew, left fullback Baek Jaehyun collected possession and burst forward along the flank. Striding with calculated acceleration, he dragged Japan's right-back in their 4-3-3 shape all the way toward the touchline.

"Cross coming!"

"Close him down!"

Before Japan's defensive unit could organize their shape, Baek Jaehyun chopped back inside just as rehearsed to carve out a yard of daylight, whipping an outside-of-the-boot cross half a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠beat quicker than anyone anticipated.

Because he was an ambipedal fullback equally comfortable on his left or right foot, the Japanese defender had been forced to anticipate two diametrically opposed possibilities—a burst to the byline for a cutback, or an early delivery from deep. That split-second hesitation caused his reaction to lag by half a stride.

That was precisely why the gaffer had deployed him on the left. A two-footed fullback imposed an agonizing guessing game on the opposition.

The defender threw his frame into a desperate lunge, but the curving ball whistled clean over his outstretched boot. In the end, all he could do was watch helplessly as the cross soared into the penalty box.

The ball dipped with venomous dip right between the goalkeeper and the retreating defensive line.

Subtly pinning Japan's center-back from his blind spot, I timed my run to perfection. I sprang off the turf, vaulting higher into the air than any other human being inside the penalty area.

The second center-back had already taken up position along the goalmouth to choke off the open angle, but his efforts were entirely futile.

An uncontested header in the box was nothing short of a feast laid out on a silver platter.

Thump!

It didn't require violent force.

With the goalkeeper's weight committed hopelessly to his left and the covering center-back staring in frozen disbelief, the ball traced an untouchable trajectory. Cushioning the header downward, I sent it skipping off the damp grass before it rippled violently into the back of the net.

The split second I confirmed the ball had hit the back of the net, I wheeled away in a full sprint toward the erupting stands, dropping to my knees and sliding across the lush turf.

Yes. This was football.

At the end of the day, football truly required using your head.