Heaven and Earth (2)
Every evening, I had buried myself in stacks of match reports, drilling tactical theory into my head. My nights were spent cramming in the subtle infiltration runs of world-class forwards and memorizing the intricate mechanics of elite attacking units.
Yet as the season wore on, I came to realize that tactical acumen wasn't something that improved overnight. Committing concepts to memory and actually executing them on the pitch were two entirely different beasts.
Players routinely broke out of expected patterns in real time, and depending on how the opposition structured their defense, our entire attacking shape could crumple into disarray. To visualize all of that on the fly required an immaculate, all-encompassing spatial awareness spanning both friend and foe alike.
The more I thought about it, the clearer it became that trying to orchestrate the entire pitch was an impossible task for my modest cerebral cortex. As I closed in on the penalty box, I swept the idle clutter from my head. I narrowed my vision until only Pedri, myself, and the immediate defenders remained. After all, the only player I could realistically link up with right now was my fellow teenager.
“Nacho! Stay on him!”
Just then, Ramírez probed the flank from deep on the right, getting under the skin of the opposition backline. When their left center-back stepped out to disrupt the link-up between Castro and Ramírez, Real Sociedad's defensive shape naturally warped out of alignment.
I pushed my mental calculations to their absolute limit. A diminutive right-footer with his specific tendencies—Pedri was almost certain to slice diagonally into the box. Peeling away to cross his run toward the edge of the area seemed like a sound alternative, yet an odd sense of unease stayed my feet.
While that faint hesitation held me, Ramírez out wide succumbed to his usual dribbling addiction—his physical form was looking just as sluggish as mine today—and flailed about like an octopus on the ball. All the while, Pedri continued his charge toward the heart of the box.
“Whoaaa!”
A sudden roar erupted from the supporters packed near the corner flag. Judging by the ensuing motion, Ramírez had somehow managed to nutmeg the opposing full-back. The center-back tracking Castro stepped across to close him down, but he couldn't completely shut down the narrow angle for a cross.
I fed the new visual data into my head and anticipated the next sequence. The crossing angle was razor-thin; if the ball drifted away from goal, the keeper would easily claim it. The only way to meet it was to cut across the near post on the right side of the penalty area.
...Clever little bastard.
Pedri had already claimed the most lethal path to goal.
Thwack!
The sudden burst of momentum left no room for contemplation. Ramírez sent a low, driven ball skipping into the penalty area. As the opposite center-back scrambled to track Pedri's surge, the right-back tucked inside to plug the vacant channel. Assuming Pedri got a shot off, my best contingency was anticipating the rebound. The defensive midfielder clinging to my back was a nuisance, but if I used my body to keep his shoulders from barging past me, the pocket of space dead ahead belonged to me.
A heartbeat later, Pedri fought through the traffic and threw out a boot. His center of gravity wobbled, but he compensated for the awkward balance with pure instinct. Deep on the right side of the box, he redirected the ball toward the net.
The goalkeeper threw himself across. Clang!
With a metallic thud, Pedri's bid for his first Copa del Rey goal came undone as the ball struck the inside of the woodwork and ricocheted back out like a rubber ball. It landed three paces directly in front of me. The instant I registered its flight path, I threw my body onto the turf. It didn't matter which part of my body met the ball—only that I made contact.
Tap!
In the thirteenth minute, the ball bobbled cleanly over the goal line. Las Palmas had drawn first blood, making it 1–0 on the night and leveling the aggregate score at 3–3.
It was a dream start.
“Eyee—!”
“Nice one,” Pedri said, jogging over immediately after the goal to offer congratulations.
His expression was decidedly mixed. His usual animated, high-pitched chatter was nowhere to be heard—undoubtedly sullen that he had been denied a goal of his own once again.
“...That was a great pass,” I offered.
“You know damn well that wasn't a pass.”
“……”
I had meant it as comfort, but clearly, my delivery was wide of the mark. Unable to swallow his frustration, Pedri turned to vent his grievances to Castro and Ramírez as they rushed over to join the celebration.
“Haha, let it go. It's not like this is your first time,” Castro chuckled.
“Still, teasing a guy about his stats crosses the line!”
“Hey, you're the one who butchered Ramírez's assist in the first place.”
“……”
I had said it before, but Castro really would have made a brilliant lawyer.
“Kim, great finish. We're off to a good start.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Next came Javi Castellano, sporting the captain's armband, offering a firm nod and a word of praise. His steady, no-nonsense encouragement settled over the group.
“Now our backline just needs to hold firm.”
What sets a winning team apart? Technical skill, physical dominance, tactical discipline, and mutual trust—while you couldn't reduce success to any single ingredient, top-tier sides executed every facet of the game without missing a beat. Real Sociedad's response after conceding was a textbook example.
The aggregate score stood level. Even though Las Palmas currently held the upper hand under the away goals rule—where a tie favors the team with more away goals—their immediate priority was tightening their defensive vulnerabilities. Around the twentieth minute, their manager shifted to a double pivot in central midfield, systematically severing Las Palmas's build-up play. Less than five minutes later, the momentum completely flipped.
While our offensive channels weren't entirely choked off, Las Palmas's defensive block began to fray, dragging down our collective performance with it.
Then came the twenty-eighth minute.
“Hold your ground!”
Mauricio Lemos, anchoring the backline, bellowed at Aythami. Reacting blindly to a darting run from the opposing striker, Aythami had completely broken the offside trap. He scrambled back to re-establish the defensive line at Lemos's shout, but Real Sociedad's right winger pounced on the opening, tearing into the vacant space behind him.
Thwack.
Right on cue, their attacking midfielder picked him out from the halfway line, threading an inch-perfect through ball with surgical precision. With the offside trap blown wide open, our goalkeeper, Valles, could only clap his gloved hands together in desperate frustration. Two Real Sociedad attackers charged unchecked into the barren defensive third. It was a hopelessly lonely duel, where crying out for help was utterly meaningless.
Valles threw himself toward the approaching forward in a desperate bid to claw back any microscopic chance.
“Damn it.”
Ten yards away, Castro spat out a low curse. With a single sideways pass, the keeper's heroics were rendered entirely futile. A modest cheer erupted from the away section as the opposition flooded toward the corner flag to celebrate, while I found myself worrying far more about the collapse of our defensive cohesion than the conceded goal itself.
In attack, individual brilliance could occasionally conjure a goal out of thin air. Defense, however, was an entirely different animal. There was a good reason young, unseasoned defenders rarely claimed starting spots at the top level. Only after building an encyclopedic grasp of opposing attacking patterns and refining one's defensive technique could a backline forge the mutual trust needed to erect an impenetrable wall in front of the keeper.
So what about Las Palmas? To borrow the coaching staff's assessment, they possessed experience, but the bedrock of absolute trust was still missing. One look at the strained expressions and tightly shut lips across our defensive line told the entire story. Having ridden a rollercoaster between heaven and hell all throughout the league campaign, facing a powerhouse like this was bound to expose those cracks.
We had scored twice in the away leg, so conceding once or twice still fell within the margin of error—something within my power to overturn. My only prayer was that the foundation wouldn't cave in all at once.
The thirtieth minute, the thirty-second, the thirty-ninth, the forty-first. If not for a string of sharp reflex saves from Valles and the benevolent aid of the woodwork, the scoreboard would easily read 1–5 by now. The root of the hemorrhage was Aythami, our defensive anchor, who seemed to have completely lost his head.
What made the situation catastrophic was the sheer weight of responsibility resting on his shoulders: coordinating with Javi Castellano to manage the compact distance between midfield and defense; commanding the offside trap—though he had butchered it moments earlier; and assigning marks against Real Sociedad's fluid frontline rotations.
The bench hadn't simply sat on their hands. Instructions had been barked for Mauricio Lemos to assume the role of spacing coordinator. Yet past the thirty-fifth minute, Lemos found himself pinned deep inside the penalty box, unable to stem the bleeding. Things were looking dire. Truly, terribly dire. The crisp structure of two parallel banks of four had evaporated into thin air.
Whistle—!
Then, in the forty-fourth minute, our left wing-back lunged into a reckless sliding tackle inside the box, conceding a penalty.
De la Bella... not you too.
When the halftime whistle blew with us trailing 1–2, the Las Palmas dressing room felt like a tomb. Disappointment manifested in different ways across the squad. Pedri glanced nervously around the room, reading the tension; Castro and Íñigo sat in heavy silence; and Aythami sat slumped on his bench, a white towel draped entirely over his head.
Putting the conceded goals aside, the stark gulf in class on the pitch was sobering. Even the first leg hadn't felt this hopeless.
Click.
The door swung open, and the coaching staff filed inside, their faces wearing expressions every bit as grim as the players'. Given how brightly we had started the half, the subsequent unraveling was bound to sting. If not disappointment with the match itself, then certainly with the squad.
“Good shift, everyone. Heads up. What's done is done,” Pepe said, his voice measured as he shielded the team. “The first half didn't go according to plan, but fortunately... we still have forty-five minutes to put things right.”
“Mm.”
“Rather than pointing fingers at what broke down, I want us to revisit the fundamentals we prepared.”
He continued to rattle off tactical adjustments, but my gaze remained fixed on the far corner of the locker room. From beneath the edge of the pulled-back towel, a pair of sunken, listless eyes peered out, wrapped in an unfamiliar aura of dejection.
Aythami.
The man who usually spent his days firing off loud, shameless jokes was cloaked in an unnatural gloom. Ever since he started holing up in corners claiming he was 'channeling his inner Kim,' I had suspected a day like this might come. If he hadn't put on that ridiculous performance on the team bus, I might have felt more sympathetic.
“We push higher up,” Pepe pressed on. “Hold the line with discipline, distribute cleanly, and let the attacking unit take care of the rest. Remember, we have the best finisher in the league up top.”
...It rubbed me the wrong way. I had told myself it served him right, yet an irritating prickle of discomfort continued to churn in my chest.
“Today ultimately comes down to who supports their ace better.”
To hell with aces and tactics—what Aythami needed right now was someone to haul his spirit out of the gutter. I just wanted someone to wipe that crushed look off his face.
A few moments later, as the briefing wrapped up, the players began making their final preparations for the second half.
“Aren't you going to re-tape your ankles?” Pedri asked.
“In a minute.”
“...Where are you going?”
Ignoring Pedri's puzzled stare, I turned and walked straight toward the opposite corner where Aythami sat alone. This was merely a calculated move to win the match. It wasn't as if I actually cared.