More Important Than Money (4)
Park Min-hyuk, the midfielder who'd ended up on Kang Doin's team, was currently one of the more talked-about prospects in middle school football.
His admission to a K League-affiliated high school was already all but guaranteed, and he'd been a fixture on the national youth teams since his second year of middle school.
Naturally, he and Kang Doin knew each other's faces. Sure, Min-hyuk was a starter while Doin was a benchwarmer, but they were still teammates who'd shared a pitch, weren't they?
Not the type to rank people by their place in the pecking order, Min-hyuk had gotten fairly close with Kang Doin during what was admittedly a short stretch together. They didn't keep in touch often, but they had exchanged phone numbers.
It had only been about six months ago, so it wasn't exactly ancient history.
Did he forget about me?
Out on the field ahead of the practice match, Park Min-hyuk replayed the earlier scene in his head. Specifically, the image of Kang Doin asking what his name was.
That was, unmistakably, the behavior of someone meeting him for the very first time.
He'd thought they'd gotten along decently well—had it all been in his head? A faint pang of disappointment settled in as he watched his "friend" order him to go fetch the ball.
Oblivious to whether Min-hyuk's heart was aching or not, Kang Doin stood there yawning away, waiting for the match to begin with all the serenity of a man on vacation.
His position: right winger in a 4-3-3.
No—focus on the match first.
Min-hyuk slapped both his cheeks with his palms, shaking off the stray thoughts and steeling himself.
Whatever else was true, this was a showcase with Spanish scouts watching.
He couldn't afford to pass up a chance to experience the youth systems of Spanish clubs—first-division clubs, no less.
The same went for every single player standing out here.
Peep—!
With the referee's whistle, the vest team's striker played the ball backward, and the match was underway.
As Min-hyuk, playing central midfield, received the pass, the players around him snapped into motion like well-oiled gears.
Opposing forwards pressing hard, teammates peeling off to offer passing lanes.
Before the pressure could arrive, Min-hyuk sent the ball out to Kang Doin, who'd been idling on the right flank.
Not because of the little pre-match favor (read: order)—he'd simply passed to whoever was most open, nothing more.
"Defenders! What are you doing?!"
"He's cutting right through you!"
Short, springy Kang Doin scurried about the pitch, and what followed could only be described as sorcery.
A feint peeled him away from the opposing fullback; he kept the ball dancing on his toe-tips as he dribbled past defender after defender, then exploded into full gear, knifing toward the center before unleashing a curling left-footed strike.
Smash—!
The ball drew a flawless arc and ripped into the top corner of the far post.
All of this happened in under a minute from the opening whistle.
"Whoa, what the hell was that?"
"The guy's insane, isn't he?"
Roughly thirty players had gathered for today's showcase.
Nearly all of them were picked for national youth squads at some point—the standing reserves of Korean football, which is to say these were the boys who kicked a ball better than anyone their age in all of South Korea's middle schools.
And that went without saying for the defenders too. Yet here was a one-man show of this caliber. The opposing team had every right to be dumbfounded.
Of course, his own teammates were just as stunned.
Wearing expressions split evenly between delight and bewilderment, the vest team players watched as Kang Doin, fresh off celebrating his goal, walked up to Park Min-hyuk—the man with the official assist—and gave him a thumbs-up.
"Nice pass."
At that utterly shameless grin, Park Min-hyuk found he had no words.
He was, quite simply, flabbergasted.
To be perfectly honest, I'd never favored attacking through dribbling, even back in the day. To put it bluntly, I never wanted to be a Messi or a Neymar type of forward.
Part of that was simply because my position was striker, but the bigger issue was how badly it raised my injury risk.
Holding the ball for long stretches meant, by definition, eating more tackles from opposing defenders. Even the players I just named spent their entire careers absorbing rough treatment every time they touched the ball.
Moving well off the ball, staking out dangerous positions early, and going for goal with the fewest touches possible—
That was the style of attack I preferred most. But a man can't live on his preferences alone. Especially when money's on the line.
And above all, this was a showcase, wasn't it?
A showcase.
Showcase.
An event designed to display a person's talent—or an object's finest qualities.
In a position where I had to sell myself, I needed to put on a flashier performance than anyone else on that pitch.
Granted, dribbling was never my specialty. But I was still a man who'd built a twenty-year professional career he had no reason to be ashamed of.
Besides, my opponents were kids whose bodies hadn't even finished growing, weren't they?
Let them thrash all they liked—it'd all land right in the palm of my hand.
"Nice pass."
"Uh, y-yeah…."
The practice match was played as three quarters of twenty-five minutes each.
The first quarter ended the moment I collected the ball in the final third, beat two defenders with the Phantom Dribble and an egg crack, and buried the goal—all in one flowing sequence.
The score was 4 to 2. Victory for the vest team.
With two goals and one assist to my name, I fired another thumbs-up at the midfielder who'd set me up this time as well.
His name was Park something… hmm, what was it? Something fairly distinctive.
No, wait—was it a Kim?
Anyway, the first quarter was over, and we'd been given a short break before the next one.
December was right around the corner, and catching a cold would be far too easy. I was layering on a padded jacket and resting carefully so my sweat wouldn't go cold when an association staffer approached me.
"Kang Doin, good work out there."
Handing me a heat pack, he asked whether I'd be willing to play a different position from the second quarter on.
"No problem at all. Where do you need me?"
"One of the scouts says he'd like to see you play as the central striker. Would you… is that okay with you?"
"Of course. Please tell him it's no issue."
The staffer nodded and scurried off toward the cluster of scouts. His destination: the Valencia scout who'd struck up a conversation with me back in the auditorium.
He must have remembered what I'd said—that my natural position was center forward. He was clearly interested in me, and honestly, I didn't mind that one bit.
After all, if there was a team willing to sign me, what reason would I ever have to say no?
"Whew…."
As I let out a sigh of relief at how smoothly things were going, a puff of white breath billowed from my lips.
And this wasn't even midwinter yet.
On days this cold, injuries demanded extra vigilance above all. For an athlete whose body was his fortune, nothing inflicted damage quite like getting hurt.
Safety first. And safety second.
Muttering the safety slogan I'd heard until my ears bled at the construction sites back in my high school days, I rose from my seat.
Time to go kick some balls.
"Achoo…!"
Man, it's freezing.
"Achoo…!"
Antonio, a middle-aged Spaniard turning thirty-seven this year, sneezed violently against the biting cold.
Spain is defined by its Mediterranean climate. Summers are hot and dry, but winters are correspondingly mild—temperatures rarely even dip below freezing at the depths of January.
Therefore, having spent most of his life in Spain, Antonio would describe the Korean winter weather exactly one way:
"It's miserably cold…!"
He was standing there shivering from head to toe, hands buried in his padded pockets, when—
A sudden warmth bloomed against his cheek.
"Hey, Toni. Have some of this."
He glanced sideways to find Iñigo holding out a paper cup, steam curling up in lazy white ribbons.
He and Iñigo, who now worked as a scout for Valencia, had once played together at a second-division club in Spain back in their younger days.
And so Antonio, scout for Real Madrid, accepted the paper cup without a shred of hesitation.
"Gracias, amigo. What is this, anyway?"
"It's apparently a Korean instant coffee mix. An association staffer offered me some, so I figured I might as well have him brew three cups while I was at it."
"Three cups?"
"You, me, and one for our friend from Mallorca."
"Ah, got it."
Three clubs in total were participating in the Spain study-abroad program run by the Korean Football Association this time.
Valencia, Mallorca, and Real Madrid.
Each club would take home three players of their choosing, train them alongside their own youth squads for one year, and then send them back to Korea.
Of course, if a player truly impressed, the club could make a formal contract offer and keep him beyond that one-year window.
Well….
In theory, at least. It was always possible, in theory.
"Ugh, when is this over…."
"The first quarter just barely ended, you know?"
"They're all the same anyway. These kids are all going back to Korea next year regardless—why bother agonizing over the picks?"
Iñigo shrugged at Antonio, who grumbled between sips of his coffee.
Maybe it wasn't entirely wrong.
In truth, the level of the Korean prospects he'd scouted so far wasn't bad—but it was exactly that: not bad. Players of that caliber could be dug up in any club's youth system if you looked hard enough.
And yet, a smile played at the corner of Iñigo's mouth.
"Still, I'm glad I came to this country."
"Sounds like you found yourself a player you like."
"You saw him too, didn't you? The right winger on the vest team."
"Ah, that kid. His name was definitely…"
"Do In. That kid is the real deal, I'm telling you."
Lightning-quick feet and spotless ball control, devastating dribbling and a composed finish.
And on top of it all, he's short, too.
Every one of those elements was more than enough to evoke the memory of a certain player who once made Barcelona the best team in the world. There wasn't a single reason not to sign him.
"I even went around chatting with all the players before training started, you know? He was the only one who spoke Spanish."
"…You held a full conversation with him?"
"If I'm doing this, I should bring home a properly good player. And when I asked him just now, he said his main position isn't on the wing—it's center forward?"
"Is that so…?"
"Yep. I already told the association staffer, so he'll probably be playing through the middle from the second quarter."
"Sure, whatever."
Watching Antonio respond with his trademark indifference, Iñigo let out a quiet sigh of relief inside.
In a showcase where each club took home three players of their choosing, overlapping interest meant inevitable competition between the clubs.
Even before this, when Iñigo had casually brought over coffee and felt out the mood, the Mallorca scout had seemed to show considerable interest in Kang Doin as well.
If Real Madrid piled on top of that, the situation could only turn into a headache.
And so, reading Antonio's reaction as complete disinterest in Kang Doin, Iñigo breathed a silent sigh of relief and started toward the pitch.
It was almost time for the second quarter to begin.
"Toni, aren't you coming?"
"Go on ahead. Let me send a message first."
Iñigo left Antonio behind, waving him off with a dismissive hand.
The faint smile on his friend's face—like a man in an inexplicably good mood—bothered him a little.
But eh, it probably wasn't anything worth worrying about.