Came to Watch (2)
On the day of our Round of 16 clash against Mexico, empty seats were scattered across the stands of the stadium where we were set to play.
Neither Mexico nor South Korea was playing on home turf, so it was an inevitable reality. Perhaps because of that, the voices from the stands carried with exceptional clarity.
“Let’s win and get to the quarter-finals!”
“Dae—han—min—guk!”
“Come on, Luton Town!”
“We’re here!”
It wasn't just my imagination that something completely bizarre was mixed in there.
This isn't Luton Town, you lunatics...
Unlike our group stage matches, today those vacant seats were being filled with very familiar faces.
“We are live at Canberra Stadium for the Men’s Olympic Football Round of 16 clash between South Korea and Mexico!”
“The supporters who came out are sending up a tremendous roar of cheers as the players enter the pitch!”
“Yes, and there are many faces out there that anyone with an interest in football will instantly recognize.”
“The players and manager of Luton Town FC have all arrived here at Canberra Stadium to watch Lee Han in action!”
“As the cameras pan toward the stands, the Luton Town players are beaming and waving. Dominic has even brought along a placard cheering on Lee Han—wonder when he had the time to prepare that!”
I could already picture just how much they must have cackled while making that damn sign. I tried my best to ignore the Luton Town players grinning on the giant jumbotron.
Meanwhile, the one person I actually wanted to see couldn't make it.
It was only natural, of course, that Adelia had stayed behind in England. With the summer transfer window still in full swing, there was a mountain of work left to handle: scouting and signing viable targets, offloading players who had become surplus to requirements after our winter transfer window arrivals, and overseeing the final touches on the expansion of our home ground.
Shaking off the lingering disappointment, I focused on preparing for the match.
Up in the stands sat Manager Gordon, who had slipped a South Korea shirt handed out by the fans over his clothes, alongside our players and coaches dressed in their full Luton Town gear. With so many of them traveling all this way in a pack to cheer me on, losing would be utterly devastating on every level.
“So you’re saying every single one of them is a Premier League player?”
“Crazy, isn't it? Just think about the combined market value of the guys crammed into those twenty-odd seats.”
“Why are you looking over there? Han's market value alone is pushing nearly a hundred billion won.”
Tae-ha-hyung cracked a joke and waved toward the Luton Town players, who were lustily belting out “Dae—han—min—guk!” right alongside the Korean fans. I returned the gesture, raising both hands to wave at the section where my Luton teammates were gathered. I couldn't just ignore the sincerity of them taking time out of their schedules to fly out here as a group.
The sight of an entire English club squad showing up in the stands seemed to be a breath of fresh air for the Korean supporters, too. A large crowd of Korean fans had congregated around them, handing out cheering props, extra kits, and teaching them Korean chants. Thanks to that, any lingering sense of this being a neutral ground began to fade, rapidly transforming the stadium into what felt like a home match for South Korea.
“Your club’s got incredible team spirit,” Tae-ha murmured. “To travel all this way just to cheer you on.”
“We’ve spent years together, after all.”
Throughout Luton Town’s climb from League One to the Premier League, the core squad had barely changed. Captain Teddy had held the armband since before I arrived, while Dominic, Emir, and Hughes had been by my side for virtually my entire professional career. When you bicker, struggle, and grow together through the trenches—transforming from a haphazard, shoestring outfit into the powerhouse we were now—an unbreakable bond naturally formed.
“Right. Must be nice...”
Tae-ha's reply sounded more like an exhausted sigh, and a heavy silence fell over the players around us.
There wasn’t a single player on the Korean squad who didn’t know the chaotic state of Atlético Madrid, where the manager had been sacked twice in the past season alone. It had been plastered all over the headlines for months. To make matters worse, they had stumbled through the final month under an interim-to-the-interim manager, and even now, the club had yet to appoint a permanent replacement.
In truth, that very turmoil was why Atlético hadn't blocked Tae-ha from joining the Olympic squad as an overage wildcard—a huge stroke of luck for the rest of us. But nobody here was tactless enough to bring that up out loud.
“And then there’s that bas—no, Lopez.”
Tae-ha's eyes narrowed toward Mexico’s lead striker, Lopez Rabitod.
He was Atlético Madrid’s first-choice striker, one of Mexico’s wildcards, and the chief culprit who had squandered dozens of pinpoint assists from Tae-ha this past season. While you couldn't completely discount tactical confusion given that the club had lacked a proper manager in the season's closing month, a striker managing just a single goal across that entire stretch was frankly atrocious.
“You lot are far better. Truly...”
Basking in Tae-ha’s backhanded compliment, we shouted one final, resounding cheer and lined up for kickoff.
In more ways than one, this was a match we absolutely had to win.
“Mexico’s Lopez Rabitod scores his first goal of the Olympics!”
“With a penetration run timed to absolute perfection and a strike delivered half a beat early—enough to make any Atlético fan wonder where on earth this form was during the club season—Lopez puts Mexico ahead!”
With Lopez netting an opener inside the first ten minutes, a chill swept through the stadium atmosphere.
“What the bloody hell! Why couldn't you do that when I gave you the ball?!”
Watching Lopez bury a goal against his own country’s national team, Tae-ha looked ready to vomit from sheer indignation.
To be fair, no matter how heavily criticized he had been in La Liga, Lopez was still a forward who hit double digits in league goals. As Coach Kim Shin-tae had warned us, assuming a player would struggle in an Under-23 tournament just because he had hit a rough patch at senior club level was naive.
Besides, that goal wasn’t something our defense was fundamentally incapable of stopping. Our backline had managed to hold Adrian—a monstrous striker clearly leagues above Lopez—to within two goals during our Premier League encounters. The idea that we couldn't handle Lopez during the worst slump of his career was absurd. Between our pre-match chatter and the endless media reports trashing his form, our defense had momentarily let their guard down.
“If we concede even one more goal to that guy, you know what happens, right?”
“...Yes, sir!”
Tae-ha’s near-desperate ultimatum—making it crystal clear that conceding an opener was bad enough, but letting Lopez grab a brace would be completely unacceptable—instantly scrubbed any lingering complacency from the squad. And fortunate for us, there was still plenty of time to turn this game on its head. We hadn’t even reached the halfway mark of the first half.
Tweet—!
The moment the whistle blew for the restart, we charged into the Mexican half without a second of hesitation. Tae-ha slipped the ball cleanly through the legs of a pressing Lopez with a nutmeg, driving forward into space. Exactly as we had drilled in training, I sprinted relentlessly toward the penalty box.
Taken aback by the sight of the Korean squad pouring forward as if we didn't even need a breath to regroup after conceding, Mexico fell into momentary disarray. Catching sight of this, the Mexican manager frantically waved both hands from the touchline, signaling his center-backs to narrow the gap between them—yet Tae-ha’s cross was faster than any tactical adjustment.
An early cross, delivered at least two beats quicker than anyone anticipated, curled through the air. Having compressed the space between their goalkeeper and their defensive line out of sheer wariness of my dribbling and Tae-ha's through balls, Mexico's defense was caught completely flat-footed. With that early ball arcing in, the goalkeeper had nowhere near enough room to rush out and claim it.
“The keeper's hesitation costs him! Lee Tae-ha’s early cross bends across the pitch and curves right into the box!”
“Between the two center-backs, he leaps—!!”
When a cross is delivered onto your forehead on a silver platter like this, putting it in the back of the net is what makes you a striker.
Thump!
With a crisp, explosive crack, the ball slammed violently into the goal as if trying to rip the netting apart. Caught stranded in no-man's-land, the goalkeeper froze in his tracks, helpless to do anything but listen to the rustle of the net behind him.
“Equalizer! An EQUALIZER!! A sublime finish by Lee Han off Lee Tae-ha’s delivery! The score is one-one! South Korea restores parity!”
“The Korean supporters centered around the Luton Town contingent are leaping to their feet as one, celebrating the goal together!”
Landing squarely on both feet, I broke into a dead sprint toward the section where the Luton squad was cheering.
“That’s what I’m talking about!”
“Bag two more, Han!”
“Lee Han!”
“Can’t use his hands!”
“Brilliant with his head!”
“And lethal with his feet!”
Amidst the thunderous cheers of the fans, my chant—its lyrics slightly modified after the end of the season—rang out proudly across an international match.
I patted the national emblem on my chest, silently expressing my gratitude to the Luton Town contingent who had flown all this way. Moments later, Il-won—who had overlapped deep and was closer to the Mexican corner flag than I was—rushed over, followed by Tae-ha, who showered me with praise while hurling insults at Lopez in the same breath. Cho Kyu-hyun and the rest of our teammates swarmed in to celebrate the equalizer.
Then, amidst the celebration, Manager Gordon caught my eye. Clad in a red Korean kit up in the stands, he was flashing hand signals in my direction.
...That’s.
It was the individual tactical signal we used at Luton Town.
It wasn't that Coach Kim Shin-tae was slow to adapt his tactics to unfolding match events, but a tactical directive from Manager Gordon—perched high above the pitch with a panoramic view of the entire field—was inevitably sharper, faster, and inherently more reliable.
As Mexico prepared to kick off again, I moved without hesitation according to Manager Gordon’s instructions.
“Lee Han is dropping deep into his own half all of a sudden.”
“Ah, the broadcast is showing a replay of Lee Han’s celebration earlier. Manager Gordon was captured gesturing toward Lee Han. Could that be why he dropped back?”
Having produced two goals in rapid succession, the match caught fire, turning into a fierce, end-to-end brawl. Under our original tactical setup, I was supposed to remain at the spearhead of that brawl, serving as the final point of our attacks. But according to the individual tactical instructions Gordon had drilled into me, now was not the time to push forward.
“Just as we speak—a surprise effort from Lopez!”
“Lee Han! He puts his head to that thunderous strike and diverts the trajectory! It's a corner for Mexico!”
“Unbelievable! That shot was headed straight for the top corner, and Lee Han came out of nowhere to deny it!”
My skull throbbed with a dull ache, but the danger was cleared. While open, end-to-end attacking football made for thrilling viewing, there was no way in hell I was going to stand by and watch the opposition take the lead again.
“There had been brief rumors circulating that Manager Gordon was advising the Olympic squad, and that moment practically confirmed it, haha!”
“To sidestep the regulation stating that only one person may issue tactical instructions from the technical area, Manager Gordon is now innocently waving thundersticks with both hands, feigning complete ignorance as he cheers on Korea.”
“Could this warrant any disciplinary action?”
“Highly unlikely. For one, the broadcast footage was far too vague to prove what those hand signals actually meant. And while he is Luton Town’s manager, in this stadium he is officially just an ordinary spectator with no formal ties to the South Korean national team.”
“Right, FIFA certainly can't sanction a team just because a spectator in the stands shouted or gestured at the players.”
“Precisely.”
For the record, Coach Kim Shin-tae had flashed me a broad thumbs-up the second I hurled my body to block the shot. Clearly, the two managers had already worked things out between themselves.
“You alright?” Tae-ha walked over and asked as I dusted the dirt off my kit.
“I’ve got a thick skull, so I’m fine.”
It hadn't struck me dead-on; I had read the trajectory early and merely grazed the ball with my forehead to redirect it out of harm's way. Both body and mind were completely fine.
Watching the Mexican midfielder stroll over to take the corner, I turned to our players who were setting up their zonal marking.
“The second we clear this corner, everybody just sprint forward.”
The midfielder taking Mexico's corners tended to whip in balls that were reasonably accurate, but only moderately paced. With a delivery like that, I was confident I could read the flight the instant his boot made contact, track the landing zone, and direct my clearance wherever I wanted.
“Let's turn this around clean and take the win.”
We needed to take the lead before the first half came to a close.
With so many people traveling all this way to back us, I had no intention of letting them watch us lose.