The Eve
April 17, 2020. Friday, two days before the Copa del Rey final.
As the club bus ground to a halt in the airport parking lot, Las Palmas supporters surged in from every direction.
A few minutes later, once the security guards had cleared a path, the signal was given that it was safe to disembark.
"We're coming to the stadium to cheer for you!"
"Javi! Bring home the cup!"
"¡Vamos!"
The moment the players set foot onto the pavement, they were engulfed by the roaring cheers of an immense crowd.
Aythami and Mantovani; Mauricio Lemos, Curbelo, and De la Bella; Kirian Rodríguez, who was stepping up to fill the void left by the absent Íñigo; Javi Castellano, and all the rest. Of the eighteen squad members selected for the traveling roster, half smiled warmly at the fans, while the other half quietly set about retrieving their luggage from the bus's undercarriage.
It was a stark study in contrasts: Castro radiated an easy, sly composure, whereas Javi Castellano looked so tense that he appeared almost furious.
"Whoa—! It's Kim!"
"Kim, Kim! Look over here, please!"
When my turn finally came, I chose the quiet route and reached for my suitcase. Under the grand justification of departing two days before the final, my father had personally gone out and purchased it—a massive, bright yellow bag that practically beamed with radiant energy.
"Kim, wait up for me."
Meanwhile, stepping into the void left behind by Pedri, Nicolás latched onto my side. I couldn't pin down the exact reason, but lately he seemed to be seizing every conceivable opportunity to show his affection. Aythami had already declared with total conviction that our Chihuahua would be sitting comfortably in the presidential box having cozy chats with the Barcelona hierarchy, so I saw no particular reason to shove Nicolás away.
We walked side by side for a short while, our footsteps matching rhythm.
Just as we crossed the pedestrian crosswalk and drew near the terminal entrance, a request rang out from beyond the metal barricade that proved impossible to ignore.
"Kim! Could you please take a quick picture with my baby?"
I propped my suitcase upright on its wheels and stepped toward the Las Palmas fan. Fortunately, security didn't intervene.
"Hand me your phone."
"Thank you so much! My boy roots for you and nobody else!"
I lowered my gaze for a moment toward the bundle cradled in the man's arms. Tucked inside a miniature yellow jersey, a tiny bundle of flesh was furiously suckling on the rubber nipple of a baby bottle, wriggling faintly.
...He looks like he doesn't even know what the word 'cheer' means.
By the time the sweeping coastline of Gran Canaria came into full view beneath us, the plane's vibration and engine roar had subsided, and the chime sounded overhead announcing that passengers could unfasten their seatbelts.
I wasted no time unfolding the tactical match report resting on my tray table. Beside me, Castro matched my pace, flipping open his laptop and powering it on. The hundreds of A4 sheets were a chaotic tapestry of scribbled ballpoint notes and neon highlighter streaks—the fruit of Flores's razor-sharp analysis supplemented by Castro's focused pointers on key match dynamics.
"Don't sweat it. Win or lose, Pedri has no choice but to do his talent show."
"Whichever way the coin lands, that sounds pretty horrific, don't you think?"
"Of course it does. I already predicted the optimal timing, didn't I? I told him point-blank: the very day the match ends, he's on."
Aythami was cracking idle jokes across the aisle, but most of the squad merely brushed past it with quiet, fleeting smiles rather than chiming in.
'Speaking coldly and objectively, keeping a clean sheet against them is borderline impossible. It makes no difference whether we deploy four men at the back or five.'
Over the past week, every single man on this plane had surely replayed Flores's chilling warning in his mind.
Barcelona was expected to line up in their classic 4-3-3. If the intel gathered by head coach Rayos and Flores proved accurate, their back four from left to right would consist of Jordi Alba, Clément Lenglet, Gerard Piqué, and Sergi Roberto. With Rakitić sidelined, Arturo Vidal was slotted to fill the void in central midfield. Regular starters or rotational depth, none of it truly mattered—when you stripped away the labels, they were all monsters.
"Whoa—you really did your homework, huh?"
Suddenly, the top of Nicolás's head popped up over the back of the front seat. I offered only a brief nod and returned my focus to the underlined text on the page before me.
The phrase 'dominant aerial presence' had a sharp horizontal line slashed straight through it, whereas his aggressive defensive tendencies and left-footed profile were brightly illuminated in neon highlighter.
"…Kim, if there are pages you're not reading, mind if I take a look? I've already read through all of mine. If you want to see mine, just say the wor—"
"Here."
Before Nicolás could drag out his sentence any further, I split the stack in half and handed it across. The last thing I wanted was prolonged badgering, and sharing tactical information was hardly a bad thing to begin with.
Under the steady, droning thrum of the airplane, I resumed turning the pages one by one.
"Mantovani, check this out. I'm in here too!"
"Hm?"
"My heat map—the total ground I cover during matches—and even all my preferred forward-passing triggers are mapped out."
"Sounds like Kim is studying you."
"Right?!"
The cabin noise was by no means faint, so why the chatter from the row directly in front of me rang through with such pristine clarity was a complete mystery.
Rustle—
The sudden shifting of the seatback crushed any vain hopes I harbored.
Please, just stop talking to me.
"Kim! For the final, do you think I should try to move according to what's written in this report?"
"……."
Just as I was about to heave a sigh at the sheer absurdity of the question, Castro let out a scoffing laugh from the seat next to me and intervened.
"Nicolás, that's an analysis of how you moved in past matches. You're already playing like that without even having to think about it."
"Haha, is that so? My bad. I just got a little competitive, you know? Since the only teammates in this packet are me and Ramírez." (He muttered that last name in a hushed whisper.)
While Nicolás put on an exaggerated display of solemnity, I spoke up with the clear intention of snapping the playful mood.
"Those are just my personal training notes, so don't dwell on it and read the rest. I didn't even realize that section was in the stack I handed you."
"Got it."
"……."
"…Wait, are you studying the other guys on the team too?"
The endless barrage of conversation showed zero sign of dying down. Relinquishing the sheets in my grip entirely, I met Nicolás's gaze head-on.
Thump.
At the sound of the paper stack meeting the tray table, Nicolás's pupils wavered. If he was going to turn timid the moment I pushed back, he shouldn't have been chirping in my ear in the first place.
"…I've already memorized everything about Pedri and Íñigo. Right now, I'm only studying you and Ramírez."
"Of all the people to memorize, it had to be the two guys who can't even play in the final? Man, I haven't even been with Las Palmas for that long, but I somehow made the cut! Haha."
"You're a starter too."
"Damn right I am!"
At my flat reply, Nicolás's lips stretched wide into an unrestrained grin—an unvarnished, beaming smile worthy of an Argentine parakeet.
If I had possessed any foresight about the future, I should have shut him down cold right then and there.
April 18, 2020. Saturday, Seville. A five-star hotel located on Calle Gonzalo.
Just past six in the evening, the Las Palmas squad had just returned to the hotel after concluding our light activation session and the final tactical briefing.
Stepping out of the elevator on the twelfth floor, I walked down the carpeted hallway and slid my key card into the door lock.
With a crisp click, the handle turned. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling panoramic window directly ahead, the sprawling panorama of Seville poured into my eyes.
Resting upon an immense plain hugging the river, the city of white architecture and verdant canopy was being swallowed whole by the swelling tide of sunset sweeping over the horizon.
The fiery orange glow of twilight reflecting off the facades and thoroughfares was breathtaking, but in my view, the pure natural spectacle of the setting sun was on a tier that made any comparison embarrassing.
Tearing my gaze from the panoramic glass with some effort, I set the prepped meal box given to me by Coach Juan Naranjo onto the desk.
A shower seemed like the most sensible place to start.
Fortunately, Castro—with whom I inevitably would have fought a vicious turf war over the shower queue and bed space—was assigned to a completely different room. Because this was a historic final, the club had splurged on individual rooms for every player.
Thus, my itinerary was set: finish showering by seven, enjoy a tranquil dinner atop the bed until eight, and steady my mind while taking in the night view until nine.
A short while later, at nine-thirty.
A mere thirty minutes remained until lights-out.
Watching the quiet expanse of the city lights draped in darkness and the sparse dusting of starlight overhead, I composed my inner peace. Rather than being gripped by suffocating nerves, the occasion almost felt mundane, which stirred a quiet thread of worry within me.
A sixty-thousand-seat colosseum would be packed to the brim—thirty thousand Barcelona faithful and thirty thousand Las Palmas fanatics screaming their lungs out.
Under the watchful eyes of my father, Uncle Bari, and the Parker family, even Miguel, with his narrow eyes squinted, would be perched in the crowd, scrutinizing my every touch on the pitch.
Click—
"What're you up to?"
Waltzing straight into my room—how on earth had he even slipped through the door?—Castro came armed with impenetrable brazenness, tossing out his question without missing a beat.
"Just... thinking about a few things."
"Sitting here with only a single lamp on? Yeah, that's textbook pubertad—puberty, no doubt about it."
"What are you talking about? I don't even know what that means."
"Haha, better that you don't."
"Right."
Chuckling under his breath, the veteran strolled over and, mirroring me, propped his hips up against the windowsill.
A sudden curiosity struck me: Could a thirty-eight-year-old veteran still feel butterflies before a match?
I immediately scoffed at myself.
Not a chance.
He might appear relaxed and easygoing on the surface, but underneath, he was cast from solid iron. He was a man who had already reached the destination I so desperately wanted to arrive at—someone fully qualified to serve as a guidepost.
"Tomorrow marks the very first cup final for both of us. How does it feel?"
"Is it Castro's first time playing in a final too?"
"It is."
"…You didn't make one in China either?"
"Don't make me strangle you the night before the biggest match of our lives."
"……."
Castro's menacing threat was instantly defanged by the faint smile breaking through the deep creases around his mouth.
As the quiet laughter faded away, I spoke in an unhurried, measured cadence. Regardless of what a cup final was supposed to feel like, in this quiet moment, I wanted to communicate only what was real and undeniable.
"It might sound strange, but I can't help feeling amazed by how far we've come. It feels like sprinting forward without once catching my breath, only to finally turn around and look back just steps before reaching the peak."
"……."
"Do you have regrets?"
"A few. You and Flores poured so much into teaching me. If I had been a sharper student, I can't help wondering if I could have grown even further before stepping onto this pitch to face them."
The instant the words left my mouth, he fixed me with a look of pure, unadulterated disbelief. Overcome by an inexplicable flush of awkwardness—after all, I had actually laid my thoughts bare—I shifted my gaze back toward the glass.
High above the dark skyline of Seville, the flashing red beacon of a passing airliner cut through the night.
"…You're one terrifying kid. I guess you're just built from different cloth."
"Built different how?"
"I'm thrilled out of my mind, but I'm scared to death."
"Well... that makes plenty of sense."
My expression might have seemed impassive from the outside, but inwardly, I was genuinely awed by Castro's admission.
A man who tossed around endless banter and often comforted a rookie with heartfelt advice... yet possessed the profound courage to lay bare his own fear without hesitation.
He possessed the kind of rounded, grounded perfection that made me quietly envious.
"I've been playing this game professionally for nearly twenty years... Part of me wonders if I'm being too greedy chasing something this grand so late in the day. But at the same time, I think: What if I can take just one more step forward? Thoughts like that keep knocking."
"Yeah."
"Ah, the more I speak it out loud, the more desperately I want to win. I didn't come all this damn way just to fall on my face."
"…Neither did I."
Perched upon the window ledge, our eyes locked in the quiet dimness.
It was a stunning, cinematic night.
All that remained was to stride out onto the pitch and reap the harvest we had sown.