A 40-Year-Old Man Hides His Age (7)
Substitute appearance against Real Valladolid: 3 goals in 45 minutes.
Starting appearance against Atlético Madrid: 5 goals in 65 minutes.
Totals: 8 goals across 110 minutes of two matches.
It had been two weeks of genuinely impressive results — impressive, at least, on paper. But it hadn't changed my daily life one bit.
Which is how I found myself at school again today.
"Haaam……"
Monday, same as any other. School life was so peaceful it practically demanded a bored yawn.
The sunlight was warm, white clouds drifted lazily across a brilliant blue sky, and birds chattered as they wheeled through the air over Madrid.
"Now, the Meseta here is a vast plateau ranging from 600 to 800 meters above sea level, and it exerts a major influence on Spain's climate……"
And there at the lectern, the geography teacher was spouting words I could barely follow. Spain, apparently, couldn't be defined by a single climate thanks to the Iberian Peninsula's complicated terrain.
Since none of it mattered to me, I was about to put my head down for a nap when I gave my cheek a light slap and sat back up.
This was geography class, and the man running the lesson was the geography teacher — who also happened to be my homeroom teacher.
More importantly, he had a track record of calling out my lazy attitude in class.
-Doni. I understand why it's hard for you to focus. You're still getting used to Spanish, and juggling your dream of becoming a footballer on top of school must be exhausting.
-……
-Still, if you sleep openly during class, it sets a bad example for the other students. You don't have to do the homework, but I'd appreciate it if you'd at least stay awake. Do you understand what I'm saying?
-……Sí.
-Good. Sorry for pulling you out during break.
He was a young teacher, mid-thirties, and he never once blamed or insulted me. All he'd done was ask me, politely, not to doze off right in front of everyone.
That said, I couldn't deny it stung my pride — a man over forty, being gently asked to behave by a teacher younger than him.
So at school, at least, I made an effort to actually pay attention. The man had gone so far as to excuse me from homework; the least I could do was take the lectures seriously.
Perhaps because of that, these days I could understand most of what the teachers said. At the very least, it no longer sounded like pure alien language.
Granted, I couldn't memorize all of it.
"……Alright. That's it for today. Good work, everyone."
The moment my homeroom teacher checked his watch and called the lesson, I grabbed my bag and made ready to head out. On days when geography was the last class of the day, he always had the tact to skip the closing assembly.
Waving back at my classmates as they said their goodbyes, I was out the doors in no time.
Maybe I was just in a good mood lately. Despite having played a match only yesterday, my steps on the way home felt light. I wandered through downtown Madrid, letting my thoughts drift.
Everything had been going smoothly since I arrived in Spain.
The semiconductor stocks I'd bought a while back were trending upward, and I'd grown far taller than my original height — already past 177 centimeters. To be precise, 177.2.
My little idiot act at the start had worked, apparently, because the students at school never pried into my private life. Even my father — the one I'd expected to be a nuisance — was keeping his distance, respecting the line I'd drawn.
I'd have to keep an eye on him a while longer, but still.
The move to Spain had been full of worries, yet so far it was smooth sailing. I was even carving out a place for myself at the club, and I figured I might be called up to the first team within two years, at the earliest.
Which was probably why my thoughts had started drifting toward a different problem.
The reason I had come back as a fifteen-year-old in the first place.
The Ballon d'Or……
My previous life. The one where I played in Saudi Arabia until I was forty.
I had decided to retire at forty. And on the night of my retirement press conference, lying in a hotel room, I felt a pain in my chest and lost consciousness.
In that hazy half-lucid moment, I had seen it — unmistakably. A blue window.
[Ballon d'Or — AWARD FAILED!]
[Penalty Triggered! Initiating regression to the past!]
If I hadn't been seeing things, then the conclusion was painfully simple: I had been sent back to fifteen because I never won the Ballon d'Or.
So then — if I failed to win it again in this life, would I regress to fifteen a second time?
……Whatever. Forget it.
Worrying about it now wouldn't change a thing. The Ballon d'Or wasn't something you could just claim because you felt like it — and besides, I hadn't even made the first team yet.
That particular crisis of the soul could wait until I'd established myself there. It wouldn't be too late then.
That said — just in case — when retirement came around this time, I was definitely memorizing the winning lottery numbers first.
I was mulling that over as I reached the dorm and opened the door.
"……The hell."
The room was a disaster. As if a burglar had torn through it, every manner of possession lay strewn across the floor.
Hence my question to the burglar currently ransacking our room.
"Nico? What are you doing?"
"Oh, Doni, you're back? I'm packing up my stuff."
"Packing? Why?"
"They're moving me to Real Madrid C as of today. They've got two-man rooms too, but the dorm building's right over there. So I was moving my things."
So that was it — he was transferring rooms. The realization that I'd finally be free of his nightly snoring was deeply, deeply satisfying.
"Good for you. Hope it goes well with the C team. Want a hand moving?"
"What are you talking about? Hurry up and pack your own stuff."
"What?"
"What do you mean, what? Did you not hear from the manager? You're coming up to the C team with me."
"What?"
"I asked them to put us in the same room. Lucky, right?"
"What??"
"I object."
The football director's office at Ciudad Real Madrid.
Santiago, Real Madrid's football director, had summoned the coaching staff of Real Madrid C.
When Lucho, the team's manager, scowled and voiced his objections to the notice that two players would be promoted from Juvenil A, Santiago explained flatly.
"Ismael recommended it strongly, and I agreed. That's why we've decided to send both of them up to the C team."
"Well, I didn't agree."
"I don't follow. You of all people know age doesn't matter in football."
"Who said anything about age? Fifty or five, if the lad can kick a ball, I could care less. Half my squad's under twenty as it is."
Real Madrid C was the second of the club's two senior reserve sides.
Sitting below Castilla — the B team that played in the third tier — the C team competed in Spain's fifth division. In practical terms, it was Real Madrid's third string, and its players were almost universally under twenty.
So age wasn't the issue. As proof, Lucho recited the name of a young midfielder barely seventeen years old.
"Nicolás Becker."
He tapped one of the two dossiers on the desk.
"I'm not against him coming up. If anything, promoting this kid any later would be a crime. You told me at the time it was an ankle injury holding him back, no? Either way — the C team welcomes him with open arms."
"High praise."
"Because it's true, isn't it? Great passing, great press resistance, wide vision — and his ball control is excellent on top of it. The way I see it, he'd do a job for Castilla tomorrow if you asked."
"Then the other one is the problem?"
"That's right."
Lucho picked up the remaining dossier. The photograph showed an East Asian boy with black hair and black eyes — a rather pretty face, all things considered.
"Ka……ng Do-in…… damn it all, how do you even pronounce this?"
"If it's giving you trouble, just call him Doni. That's what he prefers, as it happens."
"Fine. Doni. Regardless, I'm against sending this Korean up to the C team."
Don't misunderstand, though, Lucho added, wagging his index finger.
"I have nothing against the boy himself moving up. I've heard from Ismael about how well he's been doing with the Juvenil side."
"So you're saying the timing is too early."
"Exactly. He's played two matches, no? You know perfectly well no one has ever gone from two Juvenil appearances straight to the C team."
"……"
"Look, I get it. Eight goals in two matches, excellent performances in training, all of it. But you have to admit the sample size is minuscule."
The truth was, Lucho — manager of the C team — found this whole situation more than a little baffling.
The boy's performances were admittedly spectacular, but the sample was tiny. Waiting a little longer before promoting him would have cost nothing.
And above all, the kid was a sixteen-year-old foreigner.
He'd been with the club barely two weeks. Forget settling into the team — he almost certainly hadn't even adapted to Spanish culture yet.
And in Lucho's judgment, there was no way Santiago didn't know all of this. The job of football director wasn't something you won at a card table.
Which was why he had to ask.
"Honestly, I don't get what's gotten into you, Director. You were never this interested in the youth players before."
"……"
"Or is it that the president's taken a shine to the youth development policy these days? Even so, there's no need to rush like—"
"That's enough speculating."
Santiago cut him off and declared, with finality:
"Whatever you say, this decision is not changing. Nicolás and Doni join the C team today."
"You've lost your mind."
"Relax. Within a month you'll be thanking me for sending you Doni. I'd stake money on it."
"A bet, hm…… you'd cover my bar tab, then?"
Santiago chuckled, fished a wallet from his pocket, and held out a hundred-euro bill (roughly 170,000 won).
"What, you're actually paying up?"
"Take it. And in a month, when you're grateful I sent you Doni, you can come collect two hundred."
"My, my. Confident, aren't we?"
"So — do we have a bet or not?"
When Santiago flashed a grin that practically said cry about it, Lucho, manager of Real Madrid C, laughed in disbelief and reached for the hundred-euro note.
"My own director's buying my drinks — what reason would I have to refuse? Just so you know, don't expect it back later, because you won't be getting it."
"That's only if Doni flops with the C team. Don't try any funny business."
"Relax. I like my bets fair and square."
And so the wager was struck.
Being promoted to Real Madrid C just two weeks after joining the club was no small surprise for me either — but it didn't change what I had to do.
Until my name was on the first-team roster, all of this was just a road I happened to be passing through. That was all.
So there was no need to get excited, no need to celebrate. I simply did what I always did.
Which meant that the next day, after finishing recovery training, at my first official session with the C team — I did what I always did.
And for a striker, what you 'always do' is score goals.
"Doni-!!"
An eleven-a-side mini-game, played on half the pitch.
From a spot drifting slightly left of center, I collected a pass from one of our midfielders.
With the field cut in half, twenty-two players were packed in wall to wall, and the space available was brutally cramped.
Which meant that wherever you received the ball, the goal was never far away.
That was exactly why, the moment the ball touched my feet, I didn't hesitate — I wrapped my right foot around it and let fly.
"Dios mío!"
"Would you look at that strike. Clean as anything."
"Perfect, that."
As my shot sliced into the top right corner exactly as intended, my teammates drifted over one by one for high-fives.
When we'd first met, they'd all seemed a bit wary of the new kid, but in the end, football has one law: the man who plays it best is king.
By now — after my third goal — they clearly couldn't care less that I was sixteen, or that I'd been promoted from Juvenil A in a fortnight.
Good enough for me. For the record, Dios mío means roughly "oh my God," so it was a cry of amazement at my shooting. Or possibly amazement that I'd bagged three already.
Either way, my first training session with the C team was going rather well. Surely I'd left a decent first impression on the manager?
With that thought, I glanced over at the touchline, where he stood watching.
"……?"
The manager's expression, as he looked at me, was anything but pleased.
Why, though?
Was he a racist or something?