North London Derby (1)
The ninety-fourth minute of the second half.
A cross sailed toward Baek Yujin, positioned inside the box.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, the ball went to Baek Yujin instead of Simon.
The process of scoring the first and second goals alone had already proven he was a player who could threaten the net at any moment, so the keeper locked in with everything he had.
Yujin planted his right foot as though he meant to strike with his left.
The keeper read the plant foot and committed to a dive direction — and then the next touch wiped his mind clean.
Tok.
It wasn't a shot. He lofted the ball once, the way you lift it for a juggle.
The defender melted. The keeper's concentration cracked for a single instant — and Baek Yujin drove the ball into the empty net.
Counting the one he'd already scored earlier, that made three goals total.
A hat-trick on debut.
"…Didn't look nervous at all, did he."
I'd come straight home after the match and put the replay on, wanting to watch the crowd roar for me — and a hollow little laugh slipped out on its own.
Who even tries something like that.
A non-stop Marseille turn off a cross, and a shot fake that looked like a lift — the kind of plays only someone like me would even attempt. Pulling them off in a debut match… I really must have nerves of steel.
I should thank Simon for this.
The only reason I'd been free to play like that was because Simon had told me before kickoff that he'd move however he needed to so I could score. Without that, I never would have had the space to take the ball so leisurely and still finish.
Thinking about it, being the youngest on the team had its perks.
Should I look at some other stuff too?
I checked the articles, then the reactions across SNS and everywhere else.
What's this?
By pure chance, a strange post caught my eye.
Tok.
I'm a guy in my forties, office worker.
Grew up watching the Messi–Ronaldo era from the time I was still developing as a fan.
(…snip…)
Back then Messi and Ronaldo were genuinely insane, you know? That era felt like nobody on earth could touch them.
But I'm getting that same feeling from our Yujin…
He's got the finishing, the dribbling, the shooting — all of it. The whole package.
A hat-trick on debut with technique that shouldn't even be legal?
I can say without hesitation this is the most shocking debut I've ever seen.
A player like this was born in Korea. God has clearly blessed this country.
Oh right — Seong Yumin made his debut over in La Liga too. Anyone catch that?
(Baek Yujin's hat-trick vs Everton — clip)
How do you pull off a touch like that on your debut?
A Korean wearing the number 10 for a Big Six EPL club at sixteen and doing that — it's genuinely insanely cool.
"…Oh."
Most of it was pure praise. People who were clearly my fans kept calling me "our Yujin" and cheering me on. Just reading the comments and the borderline-obsessive posts was enough to put me in a good mood.
My name was showing up a lot. I figured I should check in every now and then when I had free time.
"…Hehe."
A smile rose on its own. I tried to hold it back and still ended up grinning like an idiot, soft and dopey.
I thought I'd just keep reading reactions like this every day and be happy forever.
I thought nothing hard would ever come.
Matchday 25. Arsenal versus Newcastle United.
I started, scored once, and was subbed off early in the second half. The Premier League could mean two matches a week at its densest, and at least one even in a quiet stretch, so managing fitness properly was non-negotiable. I had no complaints. The game was flowing fine without me, and I was still young.
I draped a light jacket over my shoulders and sat down on the bench.
Hmm. Is it not working?
My trapping, my technique. It wasn't that they weren't landing — more like the opposition had started finding answers. I was going to need a new variable.
I was turning it over in my head when Hong Seoin, who'd been subbed off earlier and was resting with a water bottle, opened his mouth.
"Ddolgaeng-a."
"Yeah? What is it?"
Hong Seoin and I had gotten a lot closer lately. He was surprisingly good at English, sure — but when you're abroad and there's someone you can talk to in your mother tongue, not getting close is the harder option. Honestly, the biggest factor was that we went to Korean restaurants together. The food here just didn't sit right with me either.
"You've gotten taller, yeah?"
"Uh… probably? Around one seventy-nine now? Somewhere in there."
"That so? Then you're all set?"
"Set for what?"
"You're starting the next match. North London Derby."
"…For real?"
A sudden thought hit me and I scratched my head.
Wait. No way…
It was mid-February. Peak chaos season — Champions League and FA Cup round-of-sixteen brackets exploding all at once. Half-dreading the answer, I asked.
"Hyung, are we in the Champions League too?"
The UEFA Champions League. Every year, thirty-two clubs that finished at the top of their domestic leagues across Europe gathered to decide the strongest football club on the continent. A war of stars. Every footballer wanted to play in it at least once.
"Away for the round of sixteen."
"…And the FA Cup?"
"Round of sixteen for that too."
"…Haha."
It was good news. It was also going to be brutal.
North London Derby, then three days later an away Champions League round-of-sixteen tie, then three days after the first leg an FA Cup round-of-sixteen match, then three days after that another league fixture.
Is there a harder schedule than this?
Not hard, my ass. At this age, that calendar would kill me.
I was going to need some comfort from Jia noona today.
Champions League could wait. First I had to think about the match against Tottenham.
The North London Derby…
The North London Derby. The name for matches between Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, the two clubs of North London. From what I knew, it went back more than a hundred years — to the old incident when Tottenham were relegated to the second division and Arsenal were promoted into the first, turning the two sides into mortal enemies whose feud had never cooled.
There'll be a lot of people watching, right?
I must have been about five. My mother, who barely watched football at all, had tuned into a North London Derby because of a Korean player at Tottenham. Tottenham had come from behind to win on the back of that player, and my dad had been so bitter about it.
The point was this: even a mother with zero interest in football had watched a match. Because there was a Korean player in it.
If they were using my face and Hong Seoin's for marketing, the audience was almost certainly going to be bigger than usual.
"Yujin, are you alright starting?"
The starting eleven was already locked in, but Manager Alexandro still asked with a note of concern. For a normal person, starting a North London Derby — away, after a home draw last time out — would have been enough to fray the nerves.
"Ah, yes. I'm fine."
It didn't land on me. Not with a heart like mine.
It only started to land when I looked up at the stands.
It's all white.
Almost no red in sight. Maybe five thousand Arsenal fans, if that. It was an estimate, so I couldn't be sure — it might have been even fewer.
"Booooooo!!"
I wasn't even warming up. I was just standing there, and the boos rolled in.
This feels worse than the U20 World Cup.
Back then I'd still been behind the fence of being a minor, so people had held back a little. Here, there was none of that. A fight you had to win. A battlefield where anything went as long as you came out on top.
They think my mentality's going to crack?
Well — keep listening long enough and it might start to rattle. Thinking that, I turned my head without meaning to, and my eyes met those of a man in the stands wearing a Tottenham kit.
Normally I would have just looked away. I couldn't.
"Haha! Go home, Asian!!!"
"…"
He was pulling the corners of his eyes with his fingers.
Ha. So people like that still exist.
Saying "still" was generous. This was an era when racism was still very much a thing. It only really quieted down later, after my friends had climbed into the global elite — or more accurately, after they'd shut people's mouths for them.
A crack started to form in an expression that had stayed intact through every other kind of booing.
…They're insulting Jia noona too, aren't they.
Insulting Asians meant insulting Jia noona, who was born in Korea.
A hollow laugh came out.
Still at it.
If he kept that up he'd get thrown out of the ground — but I made myself a promise. For that spectator's sake, I was going to win this match no matter what, and I was going to erase racism that much faster.
I was getting pissed off.
Preeeep—!
The North London Derby kicked off.
With my face completely blank.