What Can Be Sold, What Can Be Bought (2)
Let's think this through.
The U20 national team is an age-level squad made up exclusively of South Korean footballers aged twenty or under. 'Under 20' — hence 'U20'.
Above it sits the U23 team, also known as the Olympic squad, and one more step up from there is the senior national team.
Now, South Koreans — who generally prefer baseball over football — only bother tuning in for the World Cup, the Asian Cup, or the Olympics. Well, we can throw in the Asian Games too, since a military exemption is on the line there.
But the U20 team doesn't play in any of those tournaments. The Olympics and Asian Games belong to the U23s, while the World Cup and Asian Cup belong to the senior team.
In other words, the only competition a U20 call-up could actually lead to is, for all practical purposes, the U-20 World Cup. And since the tournament exists purely to develop young players, there's no prize money for winning it — and naturally, public interest is thin on the ground.
Sure, if we won — or at least reached the final — some attention would follow. Unfortunately, South Korea has made the U-20 World Cup final exactly once, back in 2019.
Which is to say: reaching the final this time around was, realistically, a long shot.
Fine. Let's sum it all up, then.
1. The U20 national team plays only in the U-20 World Cup.
2. The U-20 World Cup pays no prize money.
3. Even South Korean fans barely care.
4. We're not winning it anyway.
Conclusion: the U20 national team doesn't pay.
Calling up a sixteen-year-old striker for the under-20 national squad was guaranteed to make waves — and rightly so.
It felt meaningfully different from a nineteen-year-old cracking the U23 side. For young players, a single year of age carries far more weight than it does for grown adults.
If an adult's year is simply one more year of getting older, a child's year is a year of boundless possibility — nobody knows what growth it might contain.
For adolescents in particular, the years of puberty and physical transformation magnify that value even further. A single year of age can open up an enormous gap in physical ability.
For precisely this reason, the Korea Football Association's decision to select sixteen-year-old Kang Doin for the U20 squad was a genuinely bold, headline-worthy move.
And the player himself refusing the call-up? That was even bigger news. Naturally, a fierce debate broke out among the association's officials.
"He refused the call-up? Why?"
"That boy... is he trying to betray his homeland? Or — don't tell me he's planning to naturalize as a Spaniard...!"
"Naturalize? That little punk, getting ideas above his station..."
"Should we run a hit piece and teach him a lesson?"
Some branded the young striker an arrogant upstart; others speculated he was contemplating Spanish citizenship. A handful of hot-blooded young officials even argued they should feed the traitor to the public and let the mob have at him.
The ones who pushed back, surprisingly, were the association's older, longer-serving figures.
"Y'all are getting way ahead of yourselves. That boy's only been in Spain a few months, hasn't he? He's just now settling into the club — you reckon he's itching to leave it?"
"Armchair patriots, the lot of you. Not one of you's given that boy a single thing to help him play football, and here you are running your mouths."
"And from what I hear, it wasn't even a study-abroad arrangement — the kid negotiated his own contract and went to Madrid himself. We can't even cheer for a boy grinding it out in a foreign country? Tsk."
"How's that any different from those hack reporters who wrote hit pieces on our Beom-geun because nobody wined and dined them?"
These old-timers, who had survived the regime change at the football association, were for the most part wise and clear-eyed people. The ones who weren't had all been packed off home when the new association president began purging corruption.
Thanks to that purge, the only old-timers left in this association were sharp ones. So they were inclined to believe the young man had his reasons for making such a decision.
That said, a sixteen-year-old striker turning down his country's call still didn't look good — that much was true.
And so, in a conference room at the football association's headquarters, just as the faction arguing 'let's teach that green kid a lesson' and the faction arguing 'just leave the boy alone' were locked in fierce verbal combat—
"Hmm. Well, I believe I have a general picture of the situation."
"..."
"..."
At the head of the round table, Park Jung-sun — president of the Korea Football Association, silent until this very moment — finally spoke. At once, the commotion vanished as if it had never been.
Into the conference room's sudden stillness, the association's most powerful man continued.
"I'm aware of why Player Kang Doin declined the association's call-up, and I'm equally aware that several of you view the matter far from favorably."
"..."
"I, too, feel considerable regret that Player Kang Doin has declined this age-level call-up, and I fully understand the anger everyone here is feeling."
"..."
"That said — the association stepping in directly to condemn a player who's barely sixteen, over a mere age-level team matter? I don't believe that's a picture the public would take kindly to."
The meaning was clear: it's just an age-level squad — of course the kid's allowed to say no. Are grown men seriously planning to gang up on a teenager? And with that, the entire room fell silent.
Nobody present dared talk back to the man who held the title of football association president — and the title of vice-chairman of a conglomerate ranked in Korea's top hundred by market capitalization.
They knew all too well what had happened to the officials who'd once, in their ignorance, talked back to an association president: every last one had packed their bags and gone home.
And so, in a conference room where no one dared open their mouth, President Park Jung-sun brought the agenda to a close in a tone of perfect mildness.
"Above all, the World Cup is just over a month away. I can hardly go troubling the good people of this nation with ugly news when the World Cup is all they'll have their eyes on, can I?"
"..."
"So on this matter, my intention is to avoid fanning the flames and settle it quietly among ourselves. Does anyone object?"
Needless to say, no hand went up, and the meeting ended there.
The sixteen-year-old striker's refusal was impudent, yes — but not unforgivable. Besides, every official in the association knew perfectly well that the current president placed supreme importance on public sentiment.
And right now, the public cared more about the World Cup in June than about some trivial under-20 squad.
"Very well. We'll leave the matter of Player Kang Doin here and move on to the next agenda item."
And thus Kang Doin was granted absolution by the president himself.
Certain officials would carve this incident deep into their memory, never forgetting the sixteen-year-old striker's audacity — but they would no longer be able to show their hostility openly.
Of course, had anyone known in advance that in one month the South Korean national team would crash out of the World Cup group stage with three straight losses, things might not have wrapped up so neatly...
Unfortunately, exactly one person in the world knew that.
Even if I look like a lunatic who'd do anything for money — fire, water, consequences be damned — I do know when to bend.
I proved that well enough when I set aside my personal grudges and became Kang Yoo-seok's legal son, all for a Spanish visa.
Which is to say: refusing the U20 call-up means this was a time when bending simply wasn't necessary.
Why?
Because of this whole affair, I'll be firmly blacklisted by the football association, the public will call me a traitor to the nation, and I'll catch flak for supposedly naturalizing in Spain just to dodge military service.
But in the end, I know that in a month's time, every one of these accusations will be pointed at the football association instead.
The reason is simple. Because I know South Korea is about to crash out of this World Cup in the group stage.
The 2022 World Cup in Qatar — the last one with only thirty-two teams in the finals — was followed by the 2026 North American World Cup, expanded to forty-eight.
Which changed the group-stage format too. The eight groups grew to twelve, and the number of teams advancing to the knockout rounds rose to thirty-two.
What's more, under the old system a third-place group finish meant automatic elimination — but now, even finishing third, the top eight third-placed teams would advance to the knockouts.
And even under those generous conditions, South Korea went and crashed out with three straight defeats anyway.
"It was an absolute circus, back then..."
I don't know why it happened. That's just the fact of it.
Maybe the Korean players were in poor condition during the tournament. Maybe the opponents just happened to hit their peak form on those particular days.
Nobody knows.
All I know is that they lost three straight and finished fourth in their group, bounced from the World Cup.
Obviously the public will rage. That rage will land on the players and the manager first, and before long it'll land on the football association.
The very crowds who called me a traitor to the nation will invoke my name while cursing the association out.
Who'd want to play football in a country like this? Naturalizing in Spain is the smart move. A broken association like ours was always going to end like this. Park Jung-sun OUT. And so on.
Technically it was the public, not the association, who trashed me — but that doesn't matter. What matters is the moral high ground I'll hold over a public drowning in guilt toward me.
That's exactly why I thought it all through to the end and deliberately declined through my own channels, without asking the club to intervene on my behalf...
'...Huh. It's quiet, though?'
Three days had passed since I delivered my refusal directly to the Korea Football Association, and not a single news article had come out of Korea yet.
It caught me a little off guard... but eh, whatever.
If the association has no intention of coming after me, that suits me fine. I had no particular desire for a feud with them anyway.
"Oh, we're here."
I turned off my phone at Nico's murmur from the seat beside me.
Out the window, the home stadium of Getafe's reserve team — today's opponent — came into view. Their base was in Madrid, same as ours, so the trip hadn't been a long one.
"You don't seem nervous at all, Doni?"
Apparently my calm, unbothered gazing at the stadium struck Nico as something of a curiosity. A chuckle escaped me.
"Nothing to be nervous about. It's just another match, same as always."
"It's a playoff, though. A promotion playoff. Being a little more worked up than usual is only natural, no?"
"Fifth tier, fourth tier — what's the difference."
Anyone else overhearing might have snapped at me for disrespecting the lower leagues, but unfortunately, my mind wasn't going to change.
Fifth tier or fourth tier, it was all the same to me. Third team or second team, likewise. Win and it's nice, lose and it's a shame.
As long as I could put on a strong performance, the result of the match mattered little — and I was confident I'd deliver again today.
I still had a long, long way to go before I could afford to stop.
That summer, Real Madrid C won promotion to the fourth tier.
"Vamos!!"
"Fourth division! We're in the fourth division!"
"Doni!!"
The moment the referee's whistle blew for full time, every player on the Real Madrid C bench charged onto the pitch to celebrate their promotion.
They embraced one another, climbed onto the podium to hoist the playoff championship trophy, and popped bottles of celebratory champagne in the locker room.
The sixteen-year-old striker who'd stayed placid even at the moment of promotion dodged around Spain's drinking laws — legal from eighteen — by sneaking sips of the champagne being sprayed skyward, and at the first taste of alcohol in what felt like ages, he finally broke into a wide, beaming grin.
It was summer.