Acceptance
After the comeback goal, Las Palmas shifted to a defensive posture, centering everything on counterattacks.
Second half, the 14th minute — a central breakthrough that won a free kick. The 21st minute — a shot from fourteen meters out, dead in front of the penalty box, that rattled the frame of the goal. The 29th minute — a triangle of passing with Nicolás and Castro, a right-footed instep strike off the goalkeeper's palm and behind for a corner.
On the surface, it looked like we were carving out chances one after another. In truth, I was locked in a losing tug-of-war with the strain building in my thigh.
In the 14th minute of the second half, the first cramp had seized my thigh under a center-back's tackle. By the 22nd, the faint, threadlike pain had spread to other spots, and by the 27th, the numbness had come in waves — I'd slowed to the point where anyone could see it.
I cut back on the dribbling, abandoned my defensive duties entirely… and still, there was no reversal. In the 33rd minute, my body finally crumpled onto the grass.
There had been no collision, no contact at all. I was simply sprinting out to the right flank to receive Rodríguez's through pass.
Castro came over, asked a single short question — was I okay — and then pressed his lips into a hard line. I gave a small nod and limped off the pitch, past the white line.
What troubled me more than the aching muscle in my right leg was the strange sensation behind the knee joint, as if something foreign had lodged itself there.
Beyond the sideline, Dr. Bolaños listened to my explanation of my condition and drew the line without a second's hesitation.
"This is where it ends."
"……"
My reason accepted it. My emotions refused to fall in line.
The scoreboard clock read 78 minutes, and beneath it glowed the score: 3 to 4. Barcelona were ahead by a single goal.
"It's too dangerous. The cramping itself is a problem, but the truly serious moment comes when it subsides. The instant you push past your limit—"
"…Just five more minutes."
I bit the corner of my lip and spat out an absurd piece of stubbornness. I knew it was spitting in Bolaños's face. But I didn't want it to end here.
"No."
"……"
"No means no. I'm the doctor — and deciding what can't be overcome by sheer will is part of my job."
Las Palmas's team physician was coldly immovable, his tone leaving no room for negotiation.
But I knew the catastrophe wasn't his fault, so the arrow of fury pressing down on my chest had nowhere to go but inward, at myself.
A moment later, before I could find another word, the substitution signal flashed toward our bench. Pepe answered with a heavy expression and ordered Juan Narváez to warm up.
Players of ours, you who cheer us on~
We are one at the very top!!
All the while, the Barcelona fans roared their anthem in full voice. The rhythmic stamping of thousands of feet shook the stadium structure — and my stomach along with it.
"Right, it doesn't look like this will turn into anything serious on the spot. Let's get you to the bench. If the pain flares up, tell me immediately."
"…Okay."
Contrary to the answer that left my mouth, I sank down where I was, eyes fixed on Barcelona's ace.
Right on cue, the short man was dropping into the second line of attack.
Thwack—!
The pass from their central midfielder clipped off the back of Messi's heel and bent away toward the right flank.
It was a masterstroke — feeding Barcelona's right winger while simultaneously turning Dani Castellano's press into nothing.
"Vela! Right side!"
The defensive call flew out to Las Palmas's left back, but the right winger chose not to dribble at all, instead knocking the ball back into the space opening up in front of Messi.
"Collapse inward!!"
Javi Castellano and both center-backs compressed toward the same point — and in the very moment they attempted that aggressive goal-side shaping, Messi answered Javi's outstretched left foot with a sudden stop and an explosive restart, and rode out Lemos Mourição's lunge with nothing but a shift of tempo.
Against a dribble built on small touches and a low center of gravity, the defense's half-hearted, neither-here-nor-there press meant absolutely nothing.
Worse still, in the instant Aythami hesitated — unable to bring himself to commit to the challenge — Barcelona's left back found his rhythm and pierced the offside line.
Tap—
The pass carved through the air and shattered the outer zone on the left side of the penalty box.
Las Palmas's right back scrambled to chase him down, but the opposing left back — Jordi Alba — wasted no time whipping a cross across the heart of the box.
And with cruel precision, the Copa del Rey ball rolled straight to the feet of the right winger — Antoine Griezmann…
That was all it took.
"EYEE-!!!"
In the 35th minute of the second half, the score spread to 3–5.
Amid the Barcelona fans' jubilation and the Las Palmas faithful's grief, I stared at the man celebrating in front of the goal.
Eighty minutes in, and aside from a faint trace of fatigue, he looked utterly untouched.
We were alike. We were not the same.
If I had been standing in Messi's position, I would have pushed a great deal further. Exploiting the collapsed balance of Lemos Mourição, or the hesitation in Aythami's legs — one way or another, one more step.
Messi, on the other hand, had acknowledged the limits of his own abilities for the entire match, and poured out his individual brilliance only at the moments that truly demanded it.
…What have I been doing all this time?
Not just today — the entire second half of the season. Grinding my body into the pitch, living on nothing but the vague hope that someday, somehow, things would get better.
Disgust at my own irresponsibility rose in me, and the fact that none of this was news to me made my eyes sting with anger.
Using your teammates to lift the team's level — hadn't Castro drilled that into me a hundred times?
I'd asked Coach Ríos. I'd combed through Flores's reports until I could recite them.
And the moment I took hold of my justification — that I simply liked doing things alone, that I somehow produced results anyway — I had become a tadpole trapped at the bottom of a well.
Five to three.
Those who know and still don't act are always left behind by those who do.
There was no room for excuses.
Yes.
I had lost to myself.
Even with Juan Narváez and Ramírez thrown on, the result never changed. At the referee's final whistle, the purple-vested substitutes burst from the Barcelona bench in a single wave.
The Las Palmas bench — coaches and players alike — was busy packing its tangled emotions into a basket of silence.
I zipped up my jacket and rose from my corner of the bench. The stinging, numbing ache in my thigh spoke plainly enough of my regret.
But there are days when repeating small mistakes cuts deeper than one great failure… so tonight, instead of grief and self-recrimination, I'd resolved to offer a few words of comfort instead.
One defeat was enough for today.
Opportunely, my eyes met Pepe's as he stood in front of the bench, steadying the coaches and players. I buried the wreckage of my heart behind a stiff, awkwardly upturned mouth.
"Kim… you worked hard. A bitter one, isn't it?"
"Yeah. A little."
"Right. Honestly, it stings for me too."
His enormous palm cupped both my cheeks for a moment, then slid down past my shoulders to give my forearm a couple of gentle thumps.
Come to think of it — though I'd never once mentioned it — the coaching staff had been run ragged.
They'd endured the hours locked away in the video room until their eyes went bleary, then laid thick stacks of tactical analysis across the table. Cornering players one by one and tramping back and forth across the training-ground grass must have been a thankless ordeal of its own.
…Swallowing my embarrassment and my reluctance to intrude, I seized on a suitable moment and opened my mouth.
"You did well anyway."
"……"
"I have no right to say any of this, but every one of the coaches' predictions came true, didn't it? I don't think we lost this game tactically. When we scored the comeback goal — Nicolás was so happy, and that was thanks to all that work too. Anyway, you were the best. If only I'd done a little better… I'm still lacking so much."
"……"
"…So, let's come back next year. I'm hardly a model student, but if I keep working hard, I can fill in the gaps somehow…"
My words broke off as bewilderment welled up from somewhere deep in my chest. There, at the edge of his plump cheeks — a faint sheen of moisture had gathered in Pepe's brown eyes.
Both his arms wrapped around my torso, sliding down my back, and even as it happened I could barely manage the confusion.
"…Right. You'll just come back next year. Hell — you come back."
The voice whispering at my ear and the softness of a warm belly were comforting, truly — but because it was a comfort that was anything but pure, a way of bracing against the defeats still to come, my head only grew more tangled.
Something's wrong with this.
Pepe isn't this kind of man.
Then again — maybe Miguel had been hounding him mercilessly, and this was the result.
I shared a high-five with Kilian Rodríguez, who had gone beyond despondent and into something like a death mask, then slipped away from the bench as though fleeing.
Beneath the Copa del Rey advertising boards, Castro was soothing Nicolás, who had dissolved into heaving sobs, while Messi prepared for his solo interview.
"Good work out there."
"……"
Dani and Javi, Curbelo and De la Bella, Lemos and Mantovani — one after another, they answered with forced smiles and silent nods.
The Blaugrana flag flutters in the wind~
Brave cries ring out across the stands!
We all know that name!
Barca! Barca! Barca—!!
As the Barcelona players raised both hands at one end of the pitch, answering their fans' anthem, I came face to face with our goalkeeper Valles and with Aythami.
Valles, with whom I'd never shared any particular bond, clasped my hand once and trudged off toward the bench. Aythami's lips moved a few times before he finally forced the words out.
"I'm sorry. He was just too good… there was no stopping him. Haha."
"Yeah. It looked that way to me too."
"……"
"…You could see how good he was. That's all it was."
"Damn him."
"……"
The reply came back curt and clipped, yet a faint trace of mischief lingered on his face.
Sheepish, I scratched the back of my head a couple of times. Unaccustomed gestures turned out to be harder than they looked.
"Ahh, there goes my sleep tonight."
"…You know it wasn't only on the defenders, right?"
"Is that so."
Just for a moment, a shadow passed over the veteran's face.
Convinced I was only stringing together empty words, I abandoned the cheap comfort and turned the conversation to something else entirely.
"So what talent-show act are you going to make Pedri do?"
"…Haha, that was a joke. If we made him go up there today, he'd bawl his eyes out."
The question was cut down in a single stroke, and without another word between us, we walked in silence toward the stadium exit.
That was when I caught sight of Castro being ushered under the Copa del Rey boards. Armband or no armband, he had no choice but to be dragged out for the interview, it seemed.
He was doing his best to look composed, but how badly his equilibrium had wavered was plain to see. His eyes never once met the interviewer's, and his head dipped in a nod more times than I could count.
On top of that, he would have to climb up into the stands alone to receive the runners-up trophy.
Enough… enough thinking. The final is over.
I would not forget the misery or the bitterness — but I would not turn them over and over in my hands, either.