What Can Be Sold, What Can Be Bought (5)
"Hola!"
Manager Manuel grabbed my hand and shook it with gusto. They say you can't hide a goalkeeper's background, and his crushing grip was the same as ever.
……No, wait. Not "the same as ever."
This is the past, so of course his grip was strong. It'd be stranger if it were still this strong ten years from now.
Anyway, that's the trouble with regressing. The timeline gets blurry, and confusion creeps in now and then.
"I saw your photo in the paperwork, but wow, you really are handsome! This is exactly what I looked like at sixteen… You'd better take good care of your skin while you're young. Once you pass forty, it all goes downhill fast, let me tell you."
"……"
"Ah, I skipped the introduction. You can probably guess, but I'm Manuel, the manager of this team. No idea how long we'll be working together, but let's get along well."
The training grounds of Ciudad Real Madrid.
Ten years younger than the man in my memory, Manager Manuel was behaving exactly the way I remembered him behaving.
To put it kindly, he was still full of energy. To put it less kindly, he was still a bit of a lightweight. Even so, a familiar nostalgia washed over me, so it didn't feel entirely bad.
After all, I had plenty of good memories with Manuel.
—"Agh, Doni. Did you come to training sloshed again?"
—"Hmm, does it show that much?"
—"Damn it, your breath is practically vibrating with whiskey. Don't you dare puke at the training ground like last time — just go home and sleep it off today."
—"Really?"
—"In exchange, if you don't score this weekend, you're cutting back on the booze for a while. Got it?"
—"I'll bag a hat trick, so let's go grab a drink together after the match."
—"……You're inviting women too, right?"
He was the manager who'd been there for both my rebellious years and my prime.
Nearly thirty years between us, and the gulf between manager and player — and yet, during those years together in Saudi Arabia, we'd gotten along like the closest of friends.
He never pried into my private life (pathetic, looking back on it), and I repaid his trust by giving everything I had, at least on the pitch.
The result was all those trophies we lifted together in Saudi Arabia. There was no reason to think badly of him.
"……"
But if I'd let that affection slip out and actually said, It's good to see you again, he'd have thought I was out of my mind.
I stood there for a moment with his hand still in mine, wondering what to say — then flashed a bright smile and deployed my "Nice to meet you."
"……Good to meet you, Manuel. Just call me Doni."
"Ahaha! Your Spanish is excellent! Right then, Doni. Looking forward to working with you."
Manuel beamed, genuinely impressed by my Spanish. He didn't seem to mind in the slightest that I'd spoken to him casually.
Quite different from the Manuel in my memory, who'd insisted on nothing else — just that I absolutely had to use honorifics with him, his manager.
And that was why.
Only now did it truly sink in that the manager standing before me and the manager in my memory were not the same person.
He was no longer my friend.
Just a little.
It made me sad.
'His body is in pretty good shape.'
That was Manuel's first impression upon seeing the boy. He'd gotten a rough idea from the physical profile in the paperwork, but seeing him in person, the difference was considerable.
He seemed a touch taller than the documents said, too.
And there was unmistakable muscle on his frame.
Manuel had personally gone digging through third-team match footage to scout the two players joining the second team this season, so he trusted this wasn't just his imagination.
'Looks like he trained hard over the break.'
He had no dislike for diligent players.
It wasn't that he hated lazy ones either — but watching someone attack everything with effort naturally built up a personal fondness. That was just human nature.
And yet Manuel didn't dislike lazy players either, because this was the professional stage, where every moment was a competition.
So Manuel liked lazy players too. A lazy player surviving the competition meant one of two things.
Either he had the talent and skill to survive the competition despite his laziness.
Or he was a bashful soul secretly grinding behind the scenes.
Frankly, as a manager, he didn't care which. Manuel valued results above all — as long as a player could kick a ball well, that was enough.
Personal conduct issues? As long as it isn't a crime, sort it out yourself.
Training? If you're confident in matches, slack off all you want.
These were the two commandments Manuel always hammered into his players.
The meaning: prove your ability, and I won't touch you.
Read the other way, it meant fail to prove your ability and you'd answer for every bit of your sloppiness — which was why his players always presented a diligent face.
And it showed this time as well.
'Nicolás and Doni — I heard both of them have solid training attitudes, yes?'
Recalling the player evaluations passed along by the third-team manager, Manuel exchanged greetings with Nicolás after Kang Doin and formed his first impressions of the pair.
Diligent and seemingly well-mannered. Nothing flashy.
At a glance, they didn't look much different from any of the call-ups he'd seen before.
That was fine by him. As he'd said — what mattered most to Manuel was ability.
The guys who perform play in matches. The guy who performs best starts.
That was all there was to it.
So it didn't matter what kind of people the two were. Whether they'd start would be decided by what they showed in training.
That said.
"Doni---!!"
"Not bad."
"How the hell did he show up to preseason already in match shape?"
It was the first week of preseason, when most players were still building the stamina they'd need to survive matches.
Any player who arrived with his body already finished obviously earned bonus points.
Whatever my personal feelings, nobody knew the tendencies and capabilities of the man currently managing Real Madrid's second team better than I did.
I can't remember exactly how many years it lasted, but we'd spent a fair stretch of time together as manager and player. We even drank together now and then.
So I knew exactly what kind of man Manuel was.
To sum it up:
A results-over-process meritocrat.
A meticulous tactician hiding behind a breezy exterior.
A man friendly with his players, but firm about the line.
A reformer who never hesitated at big changes.
In short: the kind of manager who built his starting lineup out of whichever players would produce the best result on the day.
Which meant he'd start whoever looked sharpest, and that a player's youth or a bad attitude at training concerned him not at all.
Well — that was exactly why my past self got picked for matches with barely a word of complaint, despite carrying on the way I did.
My attitude in training was rotten, sure, but what I actually showed during the sessions wasn't bad.
Looking back, it was a hopelessly foolish period — but now it survives as a memory only I carry, so maybe that's a small mercy.
Anyway.
I joined the second team, and the full preseason schedule kicked off.
To rebuild fitness in the players coming off their breaks, the team's training hours for the first week of preseason were devoted entirely to conditioning work.
Since I'd been training throughout the offseason and had my body ready, it wasn't especially hard — but not being allowed to touch a ball was a little tedious.
We got back on the ball properly in week two.
Tactical training was added to the schedule, and we split off by position to drill various attacking patterns and set pieces.
We sharpened our match sharpness with small-sided games. I scored four goals on my own, and the quality of my play itself, shining proof of the offseason grind, pleased me greatly.
"Doni."
It was after the small-sided game that the manager called me over. He delivered the good news with a mischievous smile.
"We've got a friendly against Valencia's second team next week."
"Sí."
"You're starting, so make sure you're ready."
I nodded that I understood. Apparently the manager had rated my performance in the small-sided games highly.
"Hmm."
But… something's off about his reaction.
He tells me I'm starting, I say okay — so why does his face look so full of disappointment?
"What's wrong?"
"No, it's just… your reaction. A bit underwhelming."
"What?"
"Well — normally when a sixteen-year-old gets called up to the second team and hears he's starting in his very first match, he goes all, like, Whoa…! You know? Shocked! Your deadpan response is killing my fun here."
I stared at him as he smacked his lips in exaggerated disappointment, at a loss for words. Right — I haven't seen him in a while, so I'd forgotten, but this is just who he is. Razor-sharp underneath, feather-light on top.
"So what, you want me to at least pretend to be surprised?"
"That would be lovely. Put your whole soul into it, if you would."
"Whoa! Me, a starter! Merciful heavens!"
"See, you're actually good at it when you try."
He wore the satisfied smile of a man watching a newborn gurgle, then explained his reasoning for naming me to the starting eleven.
"Every attacker who started for us last season is with the first team's preseason schedule right now. It's just a friendly, and frankly there's no one else worth playing, so I figured I'd give you a run. No pressure, alright?"
"No pressure was ever felt."
"Oh come on, act a little more like a kid, will you?"
"Gasp! A sudden start — I was so nervous, but hearing you say that lifted the weight right off my shoulders. What a manager, truly attuned to a player's heart!"
"Good, good."
He giggled at something, apparently hilarious to him alone, and gave my back a light pat.
"Anyway — just do what you always did. You know, all that stuff you used to do for the C team."
"Scoring goals?"
"Attaboy. Just bring back about three of them."
He tells me not to feel any pressure, then tells me to go out there as a starter and score three goals. I honestly had no idea what rhythm he wanted me to dance to.
But hey.
It wasn't like I lacked confidence.
Second team or not, the name Real Madrid never loses its pull.
Proof of that: even for a second-team preseason friendly, a sizable crowd turned out at the stadium.
Estadio Alfredo Di Stéfano.
With the stands — capacity six thousand — washed in a sea of white jerseys, the players were making their way onto the pitch.
"¡Hala Madrid!"
"Vamos---!!"
"Tear them apart!"
Friendly or not, that never meant it was okay to lose.
The home fans roared out their usual fervent support, praying for victory — and amid that surging crowd, an East Asian man was only just now entering the stadium.
"Whew…! Made it in time!"
Sports reporter Kang Jae-hyung. Thirty-four years old.
Sweating buckets under Madrid's merciless sun, he finally let out a breath of relief only after finding the seat printed on his ticket.
He'd come to Madrid to cover the Korean prospects playing in Real Madrid's system.
When word reached him that a Korean player had been called up to the second team, he'd found himself drawn to the stadium as if by some spell.
"Doni… Doni… oh, there he is! He's starting!"
Thankfully, a glance at the scoreboard confirmed the news was true. The moment he spotted the registered name "Doni" on the starting list, color bloomed in his face.
He'd come hoping to catch the kid off the bench at most — starting had never even crossed his mind.
He'd already done his homework: the registered name "Doni" belonged to the Korean prospect Kang Do-in.
Proof enough: the face of number 30, just now stepping onto the pitch, looked remarkably like the kind you'd see on any Korean teenager.
"Who's number thirty?"
"Doni? Never heard of him. One of the new call-ups?"
"Kid from the C team. Kicks the hell out of a ball, apparently."
Going by the crowd's reactions, most of them had no idea who Kang Do-in was — but among the fans who kept close tabs on the third team, he was apparently something of a known quantity.
After the match, I'm getting an interview with that guy who said "kicks the hell out of a ball," Kang Jae-hyung resolved, looking down at the field below.
Just how good is he, though…?
The truth was, this was his first time ever watching Kang Do-in play in person.
Spanish lower-league matches simply aren't broadcast in Korea.
Real Madrid's second team, in the third tier, could at least be tracked down through overseas communities — but the third team, down in the fifth tier, was beyond even that.
Thanks to the materials provided by the football association, all he knew was that Kang Do-in had bombed the fifth division. What kind of performance he'd actually put on, no one could say.
So Kang Jae-hyung watched the match half on hope, half on nerves.
Happily, hope and nerves turned into certainty before the referee's whistle was six minutes cold.
"Oh! He's blisteringly fast!"
"What is that off-the-ball movement…"
"He's absolutely shredded the bat bastards' offside line!"
"Wasn't he offside, like, two seconds ago?"
The moment his quick feet and cunning movement tore the opposing defense apart in an instant, the home crowd rose as one.
To a casual eye it might have looked like luck, but Kang Jae-hyung, a man with a decent eye for the game, could see it clearly.
The kid had hovered in the offside zone to lull the defenders to sleep, slipped onside in a heartbeat, then timed his run into the space behind the line to match the pass to the millisecond.
This was the result of that exquisite piece of play.
"¡Dios mío!"
"He's one-on-one with the keeper!"
"Just blast it!"
One moment of perfect movement breaking the offside line had conjured a one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and the stadium caught fire.
And then Kang Do-in's shot set it ablaze all over again.
"Who the hell is that kid?"
"Unbelievable! He's insane!"
"Doni---!"
The chip he lifted off the tip of his boot sailed over the head of the charging goalkeeper and sliced into the net, and the stands heaved in a white wave.
Number 30, the scorer, raised his index finger to the sky with a strangely calm expression, and the crowd answered him with everything they had.
"……"
And Kang Jae-hyung, who had watched that stunning sequence from first touch to finish, could do nothing but clutch his head in both hands.
He had no words.
But on one thing he was certain. A reporter's instinct was telling him.
"……Oh, this is it."
This story was going to blow up the view counter. No question about it.