A 40-Year-Old Man Hides His Age (6)
Most people dream of making a living doing what they love.
Of course, being good at something and loving it are entirely different territories, and some people prefer to draw a firm line between work and hobby.
Even so, eight or nine out of ten people dream of succeeding at the thing they love and living a life that wants for nothing. And if that thing happens to be a profession that earns the public's attention and applause, the dream only grows stronger.
That's why elementary school children write down YouTuber, athlete, singer, Hollywood actor, or pro gamer when asked about their future hopes.
It was why a 38-year-old man who had once written "footballer for Real Madrid" in his own elementary school future-hopes column chose the path of a scout even after retiring as a player.
And it was why, on a day off, he had left his home not to rest, but to come out to the stadium to watch an U19 Madrid Derby.
"What the— it's already 2-0?"
The practice pitch at Ciudad Real Madrid, where Round 24 of the División de Honor Juvenil was underway.
Antonio, football fanatic that he was, grumbled at the scoreboard that greeted him the moment he arrived at the ground. If he'd known this would happen, he should have come a little earlier.
Even so, a smile bloomed across his face — partly because the Madrid side he supported was winning, and partly because both of those goals had been scored by the very player he'd come to cheer for.
It was a shame he hadn't seen either strike with his own eyes, but if he asked the video analysis team later, they'd hand over the match footage. Watching that would do just fine.
So thinking, he took a seat in the mostly empty stands. Perhaps because it was an U19 match, the crowd was sparse, leaving plenty of vacant seats.
Which meant he could see the faces of the other spectators clearly.
…Including the face of someone he had absolutely no desire to run into.
"Toni…?"
"…Santiago?"
"Coming to work on a golden Sunday. I had no idea you were such a devoted company man."
The Football Director of Real Madrid tossed out the joke with a deadpan expression, but Antonio couldn't bring himself to laugh. It wasn't that the man was a bad person — it was his job title that was the problem.
Santiago was Real Madrid's Football Director, the man who oversaw the players and bore responsibility for the club's operations as a whole.
In other words, his boss.
Anyone who was happy to run into their boss on a day off should seriously consider a psychiatric evaluation. Fortunately, Antonio still belonged to the category of the mentally sound.
And so, silently screaming shit…! on the inside while wearing his best business smile, he sat down beside Santiago.
"Me? I just came to see how the player I scouted is doing."
"That Korean kid? You must be awfully fond of him. Ismael can't stop singing his praises either."
"I did put special effort into signing him. And he's every bit as good as the effort deserved."
"Well, that much is true."
Santiago nodded readily, then continued, recalling the match so far.
"Both goals were his, you know. One from outside the box in the 11th minute, a left-footed strike from distance, and one off a corner just now, with his head. The opposition seems to be marking him heavily, but his play is still excellent."
"You've been watching quite closely."
Tsk. Santiago clicked his tongue and leaned back against his seat. His voice was thick with fatigue.
"Can't be helped. I have to see it with my own eyes too."
"Doni? Why?"
"That's…"
There are two ways to infuriate a person.
The first is to stop talking mid-sentence.
Santiago cut himself off and clicked his tongue again.
"…Well, let's just say there are reasons. You'll find out soon enough anyway."
As with any sport, physical attributes are never an insignificant factor in football.
Dense muscle mass gives you the upper hand in physical duels; height and a powerful leap raise your odds in aerial contests. And pace goes without saying.
So long as a sport is played with the body, those with superior physical gifts hold the advantage — whether those gifts are innate or earned.
But the fact that must never be forgotten is this: football is not a sport played on physical ability alone.
"Nico!"
One look at Nico, right there at the halfway line toying with a defender, proved it.
38th minute of the first half. The boy, who stood about as tall as I did, took one touch of the ball and spun a neat half-turn, shaking off the press of an opponent a full head taller than him.
Of course, that wasn't just a matter of receiving the ball and twirling around.
He'd checked the defender's position before the ball ever arrived at his feet.
He'd twisted his head and upper body to the left to sell the fake.
And the moment the defender bit, he spun the opposite way—
It was textbook pressure escape, a masterful manipulation of the opponent's psychology and center of gravity. It looked effortless at a glance, but it was high-level play that simply couldn't be executed without exquisite ball control.
This is the truth of football: physicality matters, but there are plenty of tools to overcome it. Off-the-ball movement, ball control, split-second psychological battles, and so on.
And back in my playing days, I was a striker who did these things better than anyone.
"Give it here!"
I threw my hand up toward Nico, who had just escaped the press with his back to the opposing goal, and a low pass came skimming straight toward my feet.
We'd only been living together for about two weeks, and there was bad blood between us (that only I remembered), but Nicolás Becker was, personally speaking, a player I trusted.
Partly because I knew he would one day captain both Real Madrid and the Spanish national team — but more than that, I liked the way he treated me on the pitch.
Absolute trust.
When I called for a pass, the kid sent the ball my way without weighing the circumstances first.
Granted, the direction of that pass sometimes differed from what I actually wanted… but well, we hadn't been playing together long enough to build proper chemistry. It couldn't be helped.
More than anything—
Honestly, I had confidence that as long as he gave me the ball, I could handle the rest, so I didn't sweat the details.
Same thing this time.
The pass is a little soft.
Contrary to my wish for a firm ball, it arrived at my feet at a decidedly unurgent pace.
Which bought the opposing center-back, some distance away, just enough time to charge straight at me. Having already conceded twice, his eyes were blazing with murderous intent.
I don't enjoy wrestling with defenders while holding onto the ball, but in this situation, there was no way around it.
"Ngh!"
The instant I took the touch, I clenched my core and glutes and absorbed the center-back's rough challenge.
He was quite tall, so the weight difference wobbled my balance — but with my back to him and my center of gravity dropped low, it was nothing I couldn't withstand.
Besides, he'd been roughing me up like this every single time I touched the ball today, so I'd more or less gotten used to it.
As you can see, the opponent had been playing dirty against me all match long.
No doubt it was a strategy to keep me from playing freely, but how rough could a bunch of youth players really get?
Unless the intent was to shatter my kneecap, it meant nothing.
Well, back in my Saudi days there had been one lunatic who genuinely tried to spear my knee.
But this kid was no such thing.
"Doni! Back to me!"
Meanwhile, after I'd held off the center-back and jostled with him for a few seconds, Nico came sprinting toward me.
This is why quick-witted players are a joy. Without a word of explanation, he moved on his own, and the tempo of the attack picked up.
And naturally, the faster the attack develops, the harder it becomes for the defense to cope.
Tap—
I released the ball back to Nicolás without a second's hesitation. At the same time, I eased the tension from my core and hips, spun on the pivot, and turned to face the goal I'd been shielding.
As I shifted gears and penetrated into the box, the center-back marking me scrambled to grab at the sleeve of my uniform.
A pointless struggle.
"Joder!"
I wrenched my arm free, shook off his grip, and crossed into the penalty area.
Behind me came the center-back's short curse, and ahead, Nico's lofted pass was already arcing down over my head. The first I could ignore; only the second mattered.
The pass was carrying backspin as it sailed over me. Judging by its trajectory, I could reach it with a fully extended leg.
The kid really could deliver a pass.
The opposing goalkeeper rushed off his line to narrow the angle, arms spread wide — but in my estimation, he'd set his stance far too low.
Wasn't the top of the goal wide open, playing like that?
Thump—
Before the ball could even touch the ground, I flicked it lightly off the instep, and it sailed clean over the goalkeeper's head.
The keeper's desperate, skyward lunge resembled nothing so much as Icarus falling from the heavens to the earth.
All the more so for how grim the ending would be.
The goalkeeper's outstretched hand never reached its target, and after one bounce off the grass, the ball split the net.
Before long, my teammates came shrieking and piling onto me.
"Doni---!!"
"Another hat trick? Seriously?"
"You absolute maniac!"
That made the score 3-0.
It was still only the first half, but it was no exaggeration to say the match had already been decided.
Having led 3-0 at the break, Real Madrid's Juvenil A side kept up the pressure on Atlético Madrid's Juvenil A in the second half as well.
Kang Doin, who had already completed a hat trick in the first half, added two more goals after the interval.
In the 51st minute, he buried a free kick he'd won himself just outside the box for his fourth, and in the 59th, he dribbled past two defenders in a blink inside the penalty area to slot home his fifth — hammering the final nail in the coffin.
Atlético did manage a goal from a set piece, but it did little to change the shape of the match.
Then, in the 65th minute, certain of victory after that fifth goal, Manager Ismael decided to conserve his prodigy's legs and subbed Kang Doin off.
"Good work out there, Doni."
"Sí."
"Be careful after the match. The other team's manager and players might try to kill you."
When Kang Doin snorted at the deadpan joke, Ismael chuckled and ruffled the boy's hair.
In the last match against Real Valladolid, he'd come on while the team was losing and bagged a hat trick; today, with first place in the group on the line, he'd scored five.
There was no luck like this. Ismael's honey-dripping eyes followed Kang Doin all the way back to the bench.
It got so bad that the head coach watching from beside him felt obliged to give him a discreet scolding.
"The match is still going on, you know. Aren't you watching Doni a bit too much? The other players will notice."
"Can you blame me? Where on earth did we dig that boy up?"
"Didn't we get him from Korea?"
"That's not what I'm asking."
Exhaling a long sigh at the unfunny joke, Ismael turned his gaze back to the pitch. His eyes were on the match, of course, but his mind was in the past — back to the first time he'd ever laid eyes on Kang Doin.
Roughly half a year ago, when the Football Director had shown him the boy's footage.
Back then, a scrawny kid not even 170 centimeters tall had been playing like Messi, and Ismael had thought: give it some time, and he could mold this boy into a fine striker…
"…I think I was wrong."
"About what?"
"About Doni. No matter how I look at him, the boy is already finished. There's nothing left to teach him here."
Forty-five minutes in his debut match, three goals.
Sixty-five minutes in his second match, five goals.
A striker isn't necessarily bad just because he doesn't score — but a striker who scores a lot is, without exception, a good striker.
Football is, in the end, a sport you can only win by putting the ball in the net. The game has been through many evolutions, but the value of a goal has never changed.
And the performances this Korean striker had delivered so far were unmistakably not those of a youth-level player.
"I'll have to talk to Santiago again."
"The Director?"
"Yeah. Doni shouldn't be bullying boys his own age. He's more than ready to swim in bigger waters."
In truth, he had already reported this upward several times. Just watching the boy in his first training sessions made it obvious he didn't belong at this level.
But the more conservative leadership above had issued instructions to wait and see, given how recently he'd joined the team, and Ismael had tried to comply.
Watching the last match, however, his mind had changed. And watching today's match, that changed mind had hardened into conviction.
"I'll give him a call the moment the match ends."
For better or for worse, Ismael's resolve turned out to be utterly pointless.
Because the very next day, Kang Doin received notice to join the training sessions of Real Madrid C.
It was the first day of April.