Entrance Test (2)
The morning of the football club tryouts.
Seongil High's football coach, Ryu Ilhae, found himself recalling what the assistant coach had said while handing over the pre-sorted application forms.
There are two applicants from Baeksan Middle School.
A simple sentence—almost too simple—and though he hadn't confirmed anything yet, a natural smile was already spreading across his lips.
How could it not?
Two of them, from that Baeksan Middle…
Baeksan Middle School.
Originally, it was a school whose name he hadn't even known. If not for those boys, he probably never would have realized it even had a football team.
It was absurd.
A middle school league match from within the last three years. Not a tiny tournament, either. A proper competition—however modest in scale, still a competition. Every middle school football club poured endless practice into it, all to show off the results.
And they won it without conceding a single goal.
A clean-sheet championship.
That was the equivalent of adults playing football against elementary school kids. It wasn't even a matter of a lopsided scoreline—how was a shutout even possible? Even among amateurs, it bordered on the impossible. And to more than double the score gap against the runners-up? That was like plucking stars from the sky.
But Baeksan Middle had done it.
Even the top scorer race was an internal affair.
First and second place in the scoring charts had both come from the same school—Baeksan Middle. The entire Korean football world had been stunned. And it wasn't as though the other teams had been weak. They were fully capable of stopping goals and scoring them. Even granting that a single player's presence loomed large at the youth level, the results had been far too overwhelming.
Regrettably, they had finished as runners-up in the larger national tournament—but the MVP still went to Baeksan Middle. Think of them as having won every other competition without conceding a goal. The one they lost? That had gone to penalties. Extraordinary, even then.
Must be because they had five geniuses.
Even so, that interview—claiming all you needed was to succeed at both attack and defense—had been a bit much. Who didn't know that? The problem was being unable to do it.
And these were mere middle schoolers, yet their nicknames alone were a parade: the Noble, the Crack, the Iron Wall, the Spider Hands, the Pass Master…
Well… they had earned them.
After all, Son Hongmin—a legend of Korean football and of the EPL—had personally recognized their talent. Ryu Ilhae had watched them with his own eyes and wanted to go recruit them from Baeksan Middle himself, only to be stopped by the chairman, who insisted there was no need. He never made the trip.
And now, by some stroke of fortune, two players from Baeksan Middle had come to his school.
Of course he was excited.
Let's see…
Perhaps the key to shattering Seongil High's long slump had just arrived. Especially if what they needed was a striker.
He was leafing slowly through the papers when his hand stopped.
"Trapping…?"
Ryu Ilhae always prioritized a player's specialty first—and someone had written trapping in that box. A madman.
Anyone who listed trapping as their specialty was one of two things: a genuine genius, or a frog in a well.
His eyes naturally drifted upward to the middle school of origin and the name, and suddenly he burst out laughing.
"Haha…"
Baek Yujin, from Baeksan Middle School.
If it was that kid, this level of confidence was more than justified. He was a striker—and the top scorer of the middle school league. He was also the one who had given that peculiar interview.
People even called him the second coming of Bergkamp…
That reputation, trapping listed as a specialty, and then Han Seonwoo—who had assists on the vast majority of the remaining goals. Confirming both names, Ryu Ilhae rose from his seat with a smile.
"Sorry about this, other schools."
It seemed Seongil High was about to take flight again. If the skill from those videos two years ago had held up to the present, aiming for a national championship wasn't even a dream.
Still, Ryu Ilhae kept his expression carefully blank.
Fundamentals testing time.
…They're insane.
Han Seonwoo had displayed ball-keeping ability that defied belief, and Baek Yujin had actually trapped a shot. Individual technique that called legendary players of the past to mind. He had assigned the drills with private expectations, but he hadn't truly thought they would pull it off.
"…Baek Yujin, Han Seonwoo—you two rest for a bit."
When the scrimmage began, Ryu Ilhae held both of them out. The reason was simple: their middle school records were too overwhelming.
Neither of them had ever experienced failure.
From their first year of middle school, nearly every tournament they entered had been a clean-sheet, high-scoring affair. They had almost never failed on the attack, and almost never conceded because of a defensive mistake.
They need to learn that not everyone is a genius.
They needed to understand that the whole world wasn't Baeksan Middle's monstrous center-back, and that five players couldn't do everything the way they had in middle school. Watching the scrimmage would drive that home.
It was an extraordinary measure from Coach Ryu Ilhae.
Twenty minutes left in the second half of the scrimmage.
Looks like he's dying to get on the pitch.
That was his assessment after glancing at Baek Yujin. The boy wore the face of someone going mad with the need to play.
Hunger. Good.
Ryu Ilhae knew how important passion for the game truly was, and he liked the kid even more for it.
"Baek Yujin, Han Seonwoo. Get ready."
The score was 4–2. Fifteen minutes remaining.
Remembering the chemistry he had once seen between them, Ryu Ilhae felt a quiet surge of anticipation.
People, as a rule, cannot precisely remember what happened fifteen years ago.
I was no exception.
I remembered winning clean-sheet championships multiple times in middle school, but of the process itself—aside from a few vivid scenes—I recalled almost nothing.
Han Seonwoo was different. For him, those memories stretched back only a few months at most.
While I sat on the bench, I asked him questions, drawing out the recollections of those days from someone who still remembered them in vivid detail.
Yeah. That's how it was.
I was nodding along to the nostalgia when someone who looked like an upperclassman handed us red bibs.
"Score's 4–2. You're the two. Coach says do whatever you want out there and come back."
"Yes, sir. Understood."
"Got it."
Play stopped briefly, and Han Seonwoo and I subbed in for two students who walked off toward the touchline.
"He said do whatever we want."
"Yeah? Then we'd better put on a show for fifteen minutes. I'll feed you good passes—just run free."
"Haha. As if you wouldn't."
Strangely, I wasn't particularly nervous. I stepped onto the pitch with ease.
The open position was the lone striker, so I took my place at the center circle; Han Seonwoo, the midfielder, settled into the empty space in the middle.
I wasn't truly tense—but my heart was pounding.
Let's enjoy this.
The sheer thought of finally playing nearly made me miss the whistle that restarted the match.
Piiip—!
The ball started with our team—a goal kick from the red bibs.
"Pass!"
Han Seonwoo had already dropped deep into the defensive line, collecting the ball from the keeper and actively joining the build-up. The usually smiling face was gone, replaced by a look of pure seriousness.
Mm. No problems there.
From watching and talking on the sidelines, my assessment had been that both teams had solid fundamentals but no real chemistry. Passes from the back were getting intercepted left and right—chaos.
But if Han Seonwoo, with his exceptional game-management ability, started the build-up from the rear, the results would change dramatically.
As he slowly carried the ball forward, I studied the two tall center-backs standing in front of me.
Both of them were marking me alone.
So I've earned their wariness.
After hearing Han Seonwoo's stories and being reminded of exactly what kind of player I had been, it wasn't particularly surprising. A little hollow and absurd, maybe—but that was all.
Well, originally I would have been dealing with one of them. Now it was just a bit more annoying.
As Han Seonwoo completed a successful build-up and crossed the halfway line, the two center-backs gradually dropped their line, and I naturally found myself positioned just outside the penalty box.
A pass would be nice right about now.
I had something specific in mind.
The moment my eyes met Han Seonwoo's as he searched for a passing lane, I cut straight into the box.
Paaang—!
Without a moment's hesitation, Han Seonwoo sent the ball forward—toward me.
It was low. Uncharacteristically short and hard.
But as I turned my head to track the falling ball, a flood of thoughts filled my mind.
That's Han Seonwoo for you.
He knew exactly what I wanted to do and delivered the pass for it. A creative ball that even sparked ideas beyond the original plan. The fact that a player like this was only seventeen never stopped being astonishing.
"It's short! Cut it out!"
The two center-backs saw the short pass coming and surged forward to intercept. The right call.
Press a short pass and, unless the attacker is a professional, he'll panic and lose possession.
The problem was that the attacker was me.
Han Seonwoo's pass lost its force and dropped toward my calf. The defender closed to within a single step and stretched his foot toward the falling ball.
Before it could catch on his boot, I flicked it forward with a light touch of my left outside foot.
The ball traced a perfect curve, as if it had a life of its own.
"Ah…? That…?"
The ball's speed died and it moved exactly as I wanted. At the same time, it lofted over the defender's reach and dropped into the open space inside the box. I had already been running, so I got to it first.
Nice trap.
The defender recovered and tried to grab my body, but he was already caught on the wrong foot—chasing was hopeless.
One-on-one with the keeper.
He was doing a decent job of covering, but I could see the empty space.
Tok.
I lofted a chip shot toward that gap. The ball crossed the goal line, and in an instant the pitch fell silent.
"…"
I spread both arms and listened to the whisper of the ground.
Baek Yujin! Baek Yujin! Baek Yujin!
It felt as though the pitch itself was chanting my name.
A smile rose naturally to my lips.
This is fun.
Insanely fun.
A euphoria so fierce it felt like my heart might burst. As a striker, communicating through the ball with a midfielder, striking, and scoring—that act brought me pure catharsis.
It works.
I could play exactly the way I wanted. Every doubt that had clung to that play and that goal vanished completely.
I had held this back for fifteen years.
It felt like a blocked hole had finally been punched open. The forgotten hunger for goals flooded every corner of my being.
The first goal since my return.
Even if I wanted to forget it, I didn't think I ever could.
"Han Seonwoo!"
I looked toward the one who had provided the assist. He was already sitting on the ground, waving—as if the idea that I might miss had never crossed his mind.
Heh. How much does this guy trust me?
I stepped past the players slumped around me and walked over to him.
"So you're back, my lord the Noble?"
"Yeah. Nice pass."
I laughed at Han Seonwoo's playful jab and high-fived him.
Smack!
From long ago, every time we scored, we praised each other with a single line and a light clap.
All of this had unfolded less than three minutes after we stepped onto the pitch.
It was only the beginning—the first announcement that the Noble of the Pitch had returned.