Chapter 265: 19-20 Season. (Part 4)
[Ryu Ha-neul takes the ball! One! Two! Both cleared! Now only one goalkeeper left! Whoosh! Ryu Ha-neul's precise shot! It again pierces the goal net! Ryu Ha-neul scores a hat-trick in just 24 minutes of the first half!]
[No one can match Ryu Ha-neul's calmness inside the penalty box among the world's best football players? How can a player only in her third season be this calm?]
[With Ryu Ha-neul's goal again, Barcelona leads 2:0!]
……
……
[Lautina's header! Blocked! What a great save! Huh? Huh? The one I was waiting for! Goal! Goal! Goal! Ryu Ha-neul scores a hat-trick by just tapping the ball! Ryu Ha-neul records a hat-trick in just 34 minutes of the first half!]
[This is Ryu Ha-neul's strength, right? Actually, regular fans really like Ryu Ha-neul's flashy plays, but what the experts praise about Ryu Ha-neul is this positioning ability? The ability to always be in the position that needs to be. Using that positioning ability to the fullest, he pulls out the third goal.]
[Ryu Ha-neul smiles brightly. He records his 32nd league goal.]
[This brings the scoring competition with Marisol down to four goals.]
……
……
[Now the second half begins. Ah, Ryu Ha-neul is substituted, and Enri is substituted in. Camila enters in the attacking midfielder position Ryu Ha-neul was playing.]
[Probably because the Champions League round of 16 second leg against Napoli is coming up soon, he's managing his stamina.]
……
……
[Match over! Barcelona takes a 5:1 victory, leading with Ryu Ha-neul's hat-trick!]
*
- Barcelona! The unbeaten streak continues!
……Barcelona, who is leading the league, defeats Mallorca in 18th place and continues their unbeaten run. With this win, Barcelona's record for the season is 23 wins and 4 draws. With the match against Real Madrid completed, will Barcelona achieve an unbeaten championship this season?……
- Barcelona, hosting Napoli at home!
……Having taken a 2:1 victory in the first leg away at Napoli, Barcelona faces Napoli at home……
*
“Tina, please take care of me like last time.”
“There's no need to thank me. I'm just doing my job.”
Valentina answers bluntly as usual. It had been one week since the kiss incident. Valentina was back to the Valentina I knew. Honestly, if she had done something she wouldn't usually do after the kiss, it might have felt a bit out of place, but fortunately, not much had changed.
And I was glad about that too. If Valentina had whispered sweet nothings to me just because she liked me, it would have been hard to resist.
Well, if I had been more proactive, Valentina's attitude might have changed, but this state was perfect for now. After all, there was still the matter with Yuri.
I did want to develop the relationship, but until I confirmed Yuri's feelings, this was the best.
And I had already planned to confirm Yuri's feelings. After the Napoli Champions League match and the league match against Sociedad, there would be a national team match, so for now, I should focus on football and confirm her feelings at that time.
After confirming Yuri's feelings, if Yuri still liked me, then from then on, I would firmly plan not to lose any of the three women.
Honestly, in my previous life, being a guy like me who had multiple women would just get a bit of criticism, so it wasn't that difficult, but in this world, it was quite difficult, so I was a bit nervous about it.
But if I did that, it wouldn't make sense for me to be playing football here. There were many men in this world who could have many women at once, but there was only one man like me who became a professional football player.
Having become a pro footballer and even won the Ballon d'Or, I couldn't bear to miss out on anything.
Anyway, since football was one of the things I didn't want to miss, this match against Napoli was quite important. We had won 2:1 away, but a one-point lead could be overturned at any time.
And the key to that match was Valentina's performance, who was scheduled to play as center-back this time too.
“Tina, you shouldn't pass to me only when I'm good, right? Well, as a center-back, it's hard to connect in one go.”
“Ha-neul.”
Valentina checks my state out of concern, but she calls me with a serious gaze.
“?”
“Have you ever done that before?”
“…Until now?”
“You don't know when I started liking you?”
“……”
“Since you haven't done anything like that until now, don't worry. It's just football.”
Valentina's sudden words made me a bit startled. But I didn't feel bad about it. I didn't know when she started liking me, but from her words, it was clear that she was thinking about me.
‘…Well, this isn't bad either.’
Until just now, I thought it would be a bit awkward if Valentina said sweet things, but maybe I should cancel that thought.
And Valentina, as she said, showed her usual unflappable demeanor even while training together. Whether she had liked me since she was little or not, her form during training was the same.
The Napoli match against us came.
Napoli used their full starting lineup as expected, burning with desire for a comeback. In contrast, we used players who weren't starters like fullbacks or midfielders Joaquim or Suleime, but we weren't worried about that.
We had already used a lineup with rest for starters against Napoli away and won 2:1. And now the proportion of starters was higher than before.
‘Still, to be safe, no complacency.’
But the important thing was not the lineup but the performance. It was possible that the Napoli players would be collectively resting today, raising their game, so I needed to play the match as carefully as possible.
Whistle - Thud!
The referee's whistle blew and the match started.
Since we were already leading by one point in the away match, we started passing the ball slowly and safely as usual. And I, as usual, took my position and checked Napoli's state.
This season, Napoli mainly used a 4-3-3 with wing forwards. But it was a quite attacking tactic with all three midfielders placed in the center. However, since I was coming out as attacking midfielder, one of the midfielders, Tembéca, had come down to the position where I was standing.
Well, no matter how attacking the team, when facing us, especially me, they even used a defensive midfielder like Real Madrid, so it wasn't particularly new.
‘Wow, check out the body. Looks pretty solid.’
The midfielder from Malaga, Tembéca, standing right next to me, was a midfielder with a solid body in her late 180s. From what I knew, among Napoli's midfielders, Tembéca was the strongest in defense and had good physique. And because of that, it seemed she was assigned as my personal marker today.
To check her concentration, I slightly shifted my position, and the girl immediately stuck to my back. And even though the match hadn't properly started yet, I could catch the fact that she was very tense from her rough breathing.
‘Good that she's tense.... If she's this concentrated, it might be hard to just charge in. In that case, I should go with the textbook.’
It was good to score a clear goal from the beginning, but if I was raising my concentration while tense, it would be better to play as usual and wait for the timing when she makes a mistake.
And, not long after, Yelena connected the ball to me.
The moment I touched the ball, I felt a strong pressure from behind that I wouldn't allow my body to turn around.
Well, it was much easier to pass than to force a turn in this situation, so I connected a pass to Joaquim and slightly moved my body's center of gravity forward.
“Hueup.”
Then a weak groan came from behind. Quickly turning my head to check, as I moved forward, it seemed Tembéca's center of gravity had slightly collapsed.
‘She must be really tense. At this rate, if I touch her a few more times, she'll collapse?’
I only sparred once, and an estimate came out. If this state continued, I could bring down Tembéca within 30 minutes.
‘Football is this easy...’
Thinking that compared to this simple football, romance is really complicated.
But that's as far as the side thought. No matter how easy the opponent was, I couldn't ignore them while thinking about other things, so I erased the stray thoughts that came to mind and focused on the match again.
After several exchanges of balls, the tension in the match heightened. And the more so, the feeling that Tembéca's body, whom I was marking, was slowly relaxing.
As always, the moment when tension relaxes is the most dangerous.
This time, Eloya received the ball from the sideline and connected it to me. Since I received the ball coming from the side, this time Tembéca was looking at my side profile. The pressure wasn't as strong as before, so I used the sole of my foot to turn the ball and turned my body to the opposite side.
And at that moment, Tembéca moved and stretched her leg.
…Without knowing that I was controlling the ball loosely on purpose.
“No!”
At the moment Tembéca's legs spread, I used the outside part to put the ball between Tembéca's legs, and while spinning once around Tembéca's body, I slipped out of the pressure.
Now, only the backline was in front of me. As I ran forward, the backline moved, creating balance on the line. Especially, Napoli's backline was desperately trying to stop Arnal, who was closest to the goal.
But unfortunately, the direction my sight was aimed at was not Arnal, the central striker.
While preparing my body, I felt the presence of Tembéca chasing quickly behind me. And before Tembéca grabbed my jersey, the figure of Albarracin who dug into the goal area exactly matched the backline.
And the position I was standing in was the beginning of the attacking third where I liked to deliver crosses the most.
Using the outside of my left foot, I sent a cross to Albarracin. The fast, slightly low, and heavily spinning ball passed over the defenders' heads and flew between the defenders and the goalkeeper.
My ball accurately hit the position where Albarracin had dug in.
Without needing to jump high, it was at a height perfect for just tapping the head.
Thud.
And Albarracin, as I intended, brought the ball to his head without putting in much force, and the ball with lots of spin changed direction and flew into the space that the goalkeeper couldn't stop.
“Waaaaaaa!!!!”
At the same time as the goal net shaking, the cheer burst out.
‘Yeah, it's hard for Napoli to stop us like this.’
As expected, our team's current state was at the highest level. Napoli was also a strong team, but to score a goal so easily.
And although it was a bit early, thinking about the unbeaten in the league and the relatively easy Champions League, it seemed like a treble was in sight.
The unprecedented stage that no team in this world had stepped on.
And if I was at the center of that treble, there was a small expectation in my heart that if such a situation arose, Barcelona's fans would definitely side with me.