The 17-18 Season (4)
"Happy birthday, Ha-neul! Well—it was yesterday, technically."
"Having a birthday party the night before a match is a bit much."
"Yeah, fair point."
After the match against Sporting, the party celebrating my sixteenth birthday stayed wholesome from start to finish. In my past life, every birthday had been a circus of call girls and drinking—but everyone here was underage, so that was never going to happen.
Not that I'd have much interest in calling that kind of company even if we were older. Back then, I'd believed I was already the best in the world, so I'd had room to spare for distractions. Now there was still somewhere higher to climb, and I didn't have the luxury of looking away.
Maybe if I became the world's best in this life too. Honestly, though, it didn't look easy. Which, I supposed, would only make it more satisfying when I got there.
We saw each other at the dorm every day, but it had been a while since we'd actually spent time together like this, so it wasn't bad. Not that the conversation was anything special—it was mostly football. First-team life, first-team training, first-team matches.
"I'm just saying, why did she throw a punch there? If she hadn't, she could be in the first team right now."
On top of the usual football talk, the most entertaining recent incident—Valentina's red card—was still one of our favorite topics. A week had already gone by, but this was the kind of story that would still be funny ten years from now. Of course it was still funny a week later.
"Bruna, you clearly don't know. Tina's been a total brawler since elementary school."
"Ugh, I wouldn't have done that. Who gets sent off in their Champions League debut?"
"...Cut it out."
"I get it, though. If I'd heard someone say that about Ha-neul, I wouldn't have held back either."
"Oh, Taekwondo Girl. Right—Yuri beat up a senior once too. Where was it again? The laundry room?"
"W-why are you bringing that up now?!"
"Because it's funny? So, Tina. How many kids did you beat up in elementary school? The way Cami's talking, it sounds like a lot."
"Bruna, that's enough."
"Ha-neul! Tina's getting all serious again."
"Tina. I told you to tone down that temper, didn't I?"
"Haah... Bruna. I'll see you back at the dorm."
Valentina glared. Bruna raised her middle finger. Yuri and Camila burst out laughing.
They really were just kids, weren't they?
Sitting here at a birthday party with a bunch of kids, it finally sank in just how young I'd been when I made my debut. I'd had plenty of birthday parties before, but this was the first one since I'd come up to the first team, and that made it hit even harder.
The debut, the pace—everything really is faster than my past life. At this age the first time around, I was stuck playing for the B team because of the Non-EU Slot...
Then again, even in this life, if my father hadn't been Spanish, debuting at this age would've been difficult. Either way, I enjoyed the party with the others, and I was getting ready to head back to the dorm when Bruna came over.
"Hey, Ha-neul."
"Yeah?"
"The club asked me if I wanted to go out on loan... What do you think?"
"A loan?"
She was born in 2001, birthday sometime in August if I remembered right, which made her sixteen by local counting. And they were already talking about sending her out on loan.
...Is that actually strange, though?
Bruna was currently sitting on nine goals and five assists in ten matches in the third division. Honestly, that was not a third-division level of player. And unlike Yuri, who needed a receiving club to free up a quota just to go out on loan, Bruna was Brazilian and had been in Spain long enough that her Non-EU Slot issue had been resolved recently. She could go wherever she wanted.
Put that way, a loan offer at sixteen wasn't strange at all.
"Who made an offer?"
"About five teams from the Spanish second division? There were some from abroad too, but I don't want to go overseas."
"...That's actually pretty decent."
If a first-division club had called, I'd have talked her out of it. The second division was a different conversation.
Playing in the first division would have been good experience, sure—but the odds of a sixteen-year-old Bruna walking into a starting role there were close to zero. She'd be lucky to get five or six minutes a game, or maybe two or three starts across the entire second half of the season even if they gave her a look as a regular.
This was the age when she needed to be growing through actual match minutes. If she went to a first-division side on loan, there was a high chance she'd spend the year training and watching from the bench. And if she was just going to train, she was better off doing it at Barcelona. The facilities, the methods, the coaches—Barcelona had all of that beat.
But at second-division level, Bruna could take a starting spot and hold it.
"Yeah? You think I'd make it there?"
"Obviously. Honestly, once you get a bit older, you'd make it at a mid-table first-division side. You could even make the bench for our team, no problem."
Next season Bruna would be seventeen. If she grew even a little more in the second division and came back, we might even be playing together next year.
"Then I guess I should go for it. If you say so, Ha-neul, that's good enough for me."
"Don't you trust me a little too much?"
"Out of everyone I know, you're the best at football."
This kid... Back when we'd first met at the tryouts, she'd been the one asking what a guy was doing playing football.
Well. If she read people this well, she'd adapt just fine wherever she went on loan.
If this works out, we might all be in the first team next year. The problem is Yuri.
Camila and Valentina had been carefully raised as Barcelona prospects since they were little, so there was a good chance they'd be with the first team by the time they were seventeen. Valentina could already hold a spot as a first-team substitute if she hadn't gone and thrown a punch, and as for Camila—she came up a bit short physically, but her passing alone didn't lose out to Yelena or Lorenza, who were starting now. She knew it, too, which was why she'd been throwing herself into strength training.
Starting every week next year might be a stretch, but there was a good chance we'd be in the first-team squad together.
And if Bruna showed something in the second division, she might not overtake Abudasha—who was a rotation player—but she could definitely push past someone like Wasila or Antonia. Looking at her now, I didn't think her quality was that far off.
Yuri, though, was a harder case.
It wasn't that her quality was lacking. Bruna had the edge in dribbling and individual skill, but Yuri was ahead in pace and finishing, and her link-up play was a bit better besides. The problem was that Yuri was Korean through and through. To crack a La Liga squad through a Non-EU Slot, you needed the kind of special ability that could displace every starter in your position. Or you waited until you were twenty-two and got Spanish citizenship.
The players currently registered in Barcelona's Non-EU Slots were Yelena, the starting midfielder; Tiana, the starting center-back; and Wendy, the backup goalkeeper from Brazil. The one silver lining was that Wendy looked likely to obtain Spanish nationality within January, which would free up a slot.
But considering Coach Diena's temperament—she'd sent me down to the second team even after the kind of Champions League performance I'd put in—I didn't like the odds. If a slot opened up, someone with her personality would just go out and sign another world-class player to fill it.
If Angela were the one in charge of the first team, it might be a different story.
If Angela, who currently oversaw the entire youth setup, took over as first-team manager, there was a chance Yuri could slide into Wendy's slot. But that wasn't something I could fix.
I didn't want to part ways with Yuri either, not after knowing her this long. But for the sake of her future, transferring to another club around seventeen or eighteen might actually be better for her—and that thought sat in my chest a little heavily.
"Why are you looking at me like that? Is something wrong?"
We'd finished the party and were on the way home. There was nothing I could do for her, and I must have been looking at her with something like regret, because Yuri caught the unrest on my face and asked.
"No, it's not that... I just—I want you playing on the same team as me next year."
"Then we will. There's a slot opening next year anyway, right? Just wait a little, Ha-neul. I'll come up soon."
"...You've got this."
Faced with that kind of confidence, the only thing I could offer was a word of encouragement.
"Thanks, Ha-neul. I'll work hard. I'll really, really work hard."
"Yeah. Let's make sure we play together. All of us."
After the party celebrating my sixteenth birthday, the first half of the season flew by.
Following the Sporting match came games against Villarreal, Deportivo, and Getafe. I didn't do much against Villarreal—the physical hangover from Sporting was still sitting in my legs—but in the remaining two matches I put up three goals and an assist and walked away with two MVP awards.
Then came a short break. It was the first one I'd had since debuting with the first team, so my parents came over to Spain, and even Bada, my younger sibling, made the trip. I spent the time traveling around the country with my family. People recognized me more often than they used to, even when we were just out sightseeing, and it was a bit of a hassle—but watching the proud look on my father's face, I couldn't really bring myself to mind.
Then the second half of the season began.
"Hey."
At the first-team training ground, I spotted a welcome face.
"Cami! When did you get called up?"
The face belonged, of course, to Camila—the best footballer Athletic had. Apparently the coaching staff had noticed the drop in passing quality whenever both Lorenza and Lucia were out.
"Today, obviously. They said there's nothing left to learn at Athletic."
"You're not getting sent straight back down like Tina, right?"
"Of course not. Who do you take me for? Let's do this together."
Having a friend out there with you really was a reassuring thing.