Things More Important Than Money (5)
Antonio, the Real Madrid scout — Tony, as everyone called him — had been a striker utterly devoid of talent. He'd spent his entire career in the lower leagues and never once set foot in La Liga.
Sure, some might argue that was talent enough in itself, but the problem was that the man himself didn't see it that way.
So he accepted that he had no future as a player and hung up his boots at twenty-eight. He then buried himself in study, collected every certification he could, and landed a job as a Real Madrid scout at thirty, beginning the second chapter of his football life.
For a man who had failed as a player and turned to scouting instead, Antonio had one dream.
To be the very first to discover a striker whose name would echo through football history.
A striker who could play!
Who was handsome!
And who radiated star power!
He would unearth that player and transfuse young blood into Real Madrid! Not some collection of bent-nosed, brilliant Black players, but a squad of beautiful young faces to raise the collapsed average attractiveness of the footballing world!
Just like back in the days of Beckham, Ronaldo, and Kaká.
Just like the Galácticos of old.
Wasn't it thrilling just to imagine?
"Tony, that's racism, you absolute lunatic."
He did get roundly cursed out when he shared the idea with a fellow scout.
But Antonio did not bend. What mattered was a heart that refused to break.
Just as digging long enough always strikes water, he believed that searching long enough would one day lead him to the player of his dreams.
That was what young, wide-eyed Antonio had believed when he joined Real Madrid as a scout right after turning thirty.
"Hoo…."
Thirty-seven-year-old Antonio, meanwhile — the version of him who chain-smoked through every spare minute on his Korean business trips — saw things a little differently now.
No human being is perfect.
Everyone comes with flaws, and footballers are hardly an exception.
If a player was good, his face was a disaster. If he was passable-looking, he couldn't play. And if he seemed decent at both, it turned out he'd already signed with Barcelona.
For a Real Madrid scout, that last one was the gravest flaw of all — though frankly speaking, he couldn't deny that Barcelona's youth system, La Masia, was still a whisker superior to Madrid's.
The reason was simple.
Real Madrid wanted to buy the world's best players and guarantee results. Barcelona wanted to grow the world's best players from scratch and build results. Their goals diverged at the very root.
And that was why so few first-team players at Real Madrid had come up through the academy.
Even when they brought in a promising youngster and nurtured him, he could never push his way past the star-studded lineup of the Real Madrid first team. If talent blossomed, it blossomed somewhere else.
So Antonio, at thirty-seven, no longer clung to prospects.
Talented or handsome or not, they were never going to hold down a place in Real Madrid's first team anyway.
Which meant he would never again place his hopes on anyone. On any prospect.
Never again….
"Kang Doin!"
"You insane bastard!"
"That's five goals already!"
….
…Fine. One last time. I'll believe just this once more.
In the first quarter, Kang Doin had played on the right wing and recorded two goals and an assist. In the second quarter, he switched to center forward and somehow topped himself.
He beat the offside trap to score, then smashed in a mid-range shot from outside the box.
In a one-on-one with the opposing keeper, he toyed with the man utterly, nutmegging him with clinical cruelty. Then he dribbled past three defenders on his own to score yet again.
And in the dying moments before the final whistle, amid the chaos of a corner kick, he stuck out a foot at the loose ball ricocheting around the box and buried his fifth goal.
All of it had happened in twenty-five minutes. At that point, whether the scoreline read 5–0 hardly mattered.
"Whoa, you can seriously play."
"Kang Doin, was it? I've seen you before, right? At the youth national team camp?"
"Which high school are you going to?"
"Got Instagram? Give me your ID."
The moment the second quarter ended, the players swarmed him without exception.
Adolescent boys in the thick of their storm-and-stress years don't hand out recognition lightly — and today, no less, was supposed to be their chance to impress the La Liga scouts in attendance.
In other words, everyone here was a rival. There was no way they'd freely acknowledge a competitor.
But even pride has its limits.
There is always a sky beyond the sky.
They weren't foolish enough to cling to their egos in the face of an overwhelming plane of existence.
To put it bluntly: when Doin managed two goals and an assist in the first quarter, they'd still held out with thoughts like I could do that too. But watching him rack up five goals in the second, they simply reclassified him as beyond the spec and gave up on the competition.
Besides, three La Liga clubs had come to the Cheonan Football Center today. Rather than pointlessly inflating their pride and making an enemy of this off-the-charts monster, befriending him and picking up a trick or two was clearly the wiser play.
Ugh, what a pain in the ass.
The man at the center of everyone's attention, for his part, was deeply unimpressed by these penniless leeches latching onto him.
But Kang Doin was someone who understood exactly what the old saying meant — that a single well-chosen word can repay a debt of a thousand coins.
After more than twenty years as a pro, he knew from hard experience that a single careless word could also create a debt of a thousand coins.
So he softened Ugh, get lost, you're annoying into Would you mind if I ask you a few questions later?, one by one, and went through the motions of friendly networking.
Only going through the motions, of course. He had no intention of actually getting chummy with kids who weren't worth a cent.
"Kang Doin-ah, yah, come here a second."
Just then came the summons from the manager of the youth national select team, who was running the showcase.
Being from Busan, apparently, his speech carried the thick Gyeongsang accent of the southeast coast.
Not that the accent mattered one way or the other. Doin, thoroughly sick of playing the part of an ordinary fifteen-year-old middle schooler, headed over without hesitation.
"Is something the matter?"
"Ah, well, it's nothing bad, so don't get the wrong idea."
"Okay."
"It's just, y'know, you've been banging in goals all through the first and second quarter—"
"Yes."
"—but if the other kids are gonna make their case to the scouts too, the game needs to be at least somewhat close, see?"
"Yes."
"So, what I'm saying is…."
The man glanced furtively at the scouts and the football association staff outside the pitch, then cupped a hand over his mouth and dropped his voice to a whisper.
"…W-would you mind sitting out the third quarter?"
It was an emergency balance patch.
It was honestly hilarious. Sit out because you're ruining the balance? Never in a thousand years would he have imagined those words coming out of a youth national team manager's mouth.
Still, it wasn't an unreasonable request. The second quarter had ended 5–0, and every single goal had been his.
The opposing defenders had all made names for themselves on the middle school circuit, so their self-esteem was probably in smithereens by now. Not that it was any of his concern.
But when a manager asked that earnestly, refusing would have made him look bad — so he agreed to spend the third quarter on the bench.
He'd already left a firm impression on the scouts today, anyway. That much was certain.
"Doin-ah? Where are you going?"
"Bathroom."
He gave a casual reply to Park Something-or-other, who piped up the moment he rose from the bench outside the pitch, and made his way into the association building.
He wasn't playing in the third quarter, so there was no reason to stand around outside in the cold, teeth chattering.
The showcase for this study-abroad program was scheduled to run five days in total, today included. Catching a cold and wrecking his condition would mean losing out — and he was the only one who'd lose.
Day one had gone beautifully, but that was no license to fumble the rest.
What better way to drive up his market value than performing at the top of his game from start to finish?
"Hola."
He was mulling this over as he walked into the bathroom, and a foreigner who'd followed him in greeted him at the door.
A face he hadn't seen before. Not one of the Valencia scouts.
He gave a perfunctory nod and turned to do his business, but the man kept chattering away. Apparently, he hadn't come in to use the bathroom at all.
"Do In Kang, right?"
"…That's me."
"Wow, you really do speak Spanish."
The man was beaming, as if this delighted him beyond measure.
"Nice to meet you — I'm Antonio. Scout for Real Madrid. Feel free to call me Toni."
Hm. So the inevitable has arrived.
He's calmer than I expected?
That was Antonio's first impression of Kang Doin.
It was true that Real Madrid's youth system had produced dismal results in recent years — but the name on the badge was still Real Madrid.
Real Madrid Club de Fútbol.
What kind of club was Real Madrid?
A football club nestled in Madrid, the capital of Spain — the very face of La Liga.
The most decorated club in the world in both La Liga titles and UEFA Champions League trophies, and the most valuable football club on the planet.
"What?! Real Madrid?!"
"Seriously? Real Madrid wants ME?!"
"Thank you, God!"
And so, whenever Antonio introduced his affiliation, the vast majority of prospects reacted exactly like the above….
"Nice to meet you — I'm Kang Doin. You can call me Doni."
Watching the Korean boy in front of him continue the introduction with perfect composure, even after learning he was a Real Madrid scout, Antonio felt a faint pang of disappointment.
That wasn't quite the reaction he'd been hoping for….
"So — what did you need from me?"
"Ah."
The boy's words snapped him out of his reverie. Antonio scratched the back of his head for a moment, then got to the point.
This was the whole reason he'd been feigning disinterest in front of the Valencia scout, waiting for the moment Kang Doin would be left alone.
"I watched what you did in the first and second quarters."
"Mm."
"Your movement off the ball, your touch, your composure in front of goal — honestly impressive. Looking at the play alone, you could line up against grown professionals and there'd be nothing to trim."
"Thanks for the kind words. So?"
"I came to find you because I want to bring that talent to our Madrid."
"You mean you want to take me abroad with you?"
"Right — and let me be blunt. It's not just a study-abroad arrangement. Real Madrid wants to sign you for its youth team."
Most players — especially young prospects — accept the offer on the spot at this point.
The name Real Madrid carries that much weight. In Spain, apart from Barcelona, it's practically the only one of its kind.
It was, whatever anyone said, the greatest club in the world. Not many players find it easy to say no when a club like that comes calling.
"I appreciate the flattery, but."
The boy before him, however, was clearly no ordinary fifteen-year-old.
Faced with a recruitment offer from a Real Madrid scout, Doin didn't offer an eager yes. Instead, he fired off skeptical questions.
Quite practical ones — or, to be more precise, legal ones.
"You know FIFA bans the international transfer of players under eighteen, right? And even so, you think you can sign me?"
The boy was exactly right.
As long as FIFA's regulation prohibiting the international transfer of players under eighteen existed, signing a young foreign prospect demanded extreme caution.
Look no further than Barcelona — in 2014, they'd tried to sign a Korean prospect, violated the regulation, and been barred from registering players entirely.
But from Antonio's standpoint, the truth was he couldn't bear to let a gem this certain slip away.
"As for the transfer, our sporting director and I are working on that right now."
"Hm."
"The plan on the table right now is to extend the deadline on the student visa you'll get through this study-abroad program, then sign the contract the moment you turn eighteen."
"So basically I'd have to study abroad for about three years."
"If we go the route I described, yes — but that's not the only option. If you come to our club and give us a little more time, we'll find something better than that."
We'll figure out a way, one way or another. So make us your choice.
Doin wore a distinctly unconvinced expression, but he soon shrugged and gave a nod.
"Well, where there's a will there's a way. I've got a few ideas of my own, too."
"Th-then—"
"Yeah. I'll consider the study abroad with Real Madrid positively. And the contract too, of course."
YES!
At the affirmative answer finally escaping Kang Doin's lips, Antonio cheered inwardly. Dodging the eyes of the Valencia and Mallorca scouts to make first contact had been worth every second.
Now he just had to contact Real Madrid's football director and show him today's friendly footage. If the man had eyes in his head, he wouldn't disagree after watching the match.
Once the director was convinced, everything would fall into place. Some workaround, some loophole — all he needed was a way around FIFA's regulation, and—
"So?"
"Hm?"
"We're talking about contracts now, so you've obviously got a weekly wage in mind, right?"
Antonio, who'd been blissfully daydreaming about his rosy future, snapped wide awake at those words.
The boy in front of him was grinning.
It was an adult's smile.
"So, Real Madrid — how much can you offer me?"