vs Bayern Munich (1)
Arsenal's training atmosphere was serious.
During breaks they joked around and horsed about, but the moment training began, every man locked in with a focused mind.
"Our next opponent is Bayern Munich."
A measured tension and pressure settled over that atmosphere.
Bayern Munich.
One of the Bundesliga's powerhouses—and their Champions League quarterfinal opponent.
"Insane… Munich…"
"We have to face them again?"
"Hoo… this is going to be rough."
Most of the reactions were negative.
Of all the teams they could have drawn, it had to be Bayern Munich—always mentioned among the favorites to win it all. There was no way to spin that positively.
"…"
Of course, my own heart was perfectly calm.
A still lake would not have been an exaggeration.
"Hey, Ddolgaeng-a. You ain't even nervous?"
"You're not nervous either, hyung."
"Well, long as I play well, ain't that enough?"
"Nice confidence."
Unlike me, who simply wasn't tense, Hong Seoin's lack of nerves came from pure confidence in his own ability.
As we chatted comfortably in Korean, Padraig beside us asked casually,
"Yujin. Doesn't Munich have a Korean monster of a rookie?"
"Ah, yeah. They do."
He had to mean Kim Minjun and Lee Juwon.
I wonder how well they've adapted.
We'd been too busy to stay in touch often, but from the clips I'd occasionally looked up, they'd put in solid performances from their debuts.
"Close with them?"
"They're friends."
"Oh. Pretty close?"
"Yeah, we're close."
"So how good are they?"
"Hmm…"
I wondered whether I even had the right to rate them, but I answered lightly.
"Just monsters, like the rumors say."
"Better than the captain?"
"Hard to say… I haven't seen their recent matches either."
Video and the real thing were different; judging Kim Minjun and Lee Juwon off footage from a few months ago felt too vague.
"Still, they're a couple of lunatics, so be careful."
"That good?"
Hearing something close to high praise from my mouth, Padraig looked a little startled.
"That's how I see it."
Just thinking about the two of them—still pulling off insane saves, still sprinting and landing clean tackles—made things feel a bit daunting.
Is this the level from my past life?
They wouldn't be at past-life strength yet, so maybe I could still breathe easy for now.
That was the thought that crossed my mind.
Even for Bayern Munich, currently running away with first place in the Bundesliga, drawing Arsenal in the quarterfinals was not exactly welcome news.
"Arsenal… isn't that where Kim and Juwon's friend plays?"
"Kim's friend… I can't even begin to guess how good he is."
"There's another monster like that? Korea is an unpredictable place."
Once they knew the monster rookies who had come to Munich, they could no longer gauge how formidable Baek Yujin—already on ten goals for the season—might be.
Even studying the analysis data left them with the sinking feeling that his skill could still grow further, and their chests tightened.
After all, Lee Juwon had visibly improved the moment proper coaching was layered in.
In that situation, midfielder Jamal chose the simplest option: ask the person closest to them.
"Kim."
"What."
Kim Minjun—already being called the second Kim in Germany—answered in clumsy but comfortable German.
"You're friends with Yujin, right?"
"Yeah. Friends."
"What kind of player is Yujin?"
"Yujin? Hmm…"
After a short pause, he said,
"A monster."
"…A monster?"
"A weird kind of monster. He'll probably be smiling no matter what happens."
"Monster on a level beyond even you?"
"As a striker? Obviously."
"…Hmm."
Jamal hadn't expected that degree of praise, but he nodded soon enough.
"Thanks. I'll head off."
Next, Jamal sought out Lee Juwon, who was resting on his own.
"Juwon."
"…?"
"What kind of player is Yujin?"
He asked the same question he had put to Kim Minjun.
"You inquire as to his skill?"
"Yeah."
"Simple. Yujin is a monster."
The same answer he had just heard.
"You sound just like Kim. Then what about that Yumin you mentioned before?"
"The two are similar, yet different. Yumin is a player who creates light. Yujin is a player who makes the light come to him of its own accord."
"…That's hard."
He had gone over out of idle curiosity and left with nothing but more questions.
Makes the light come to him on its own?
No matter how many times he heard it, Lee Juwon's way of speaking never got easier to process.
Still carrying that unanswered riddle, Jamal won his league match and headed for London without ever finding the answer.
Before the first leg of the Arsenal–Bayern Munich quarterfinal.
Alexandro stepped into the locker room, pulled up brief profiles of the Bayern Munich players, and began the tactical briefing.
From the striker currently on thirty Bundesliga goals, to the midfielder Jamal with his outstanding spatial awareness.
Also in the starting lineup were the monster-physique Kim Minjun and the sure-footed Lee Juwon.
"…Seeing them in person is absurd."
"Players like that are Yujin's friends? Makes you wonder what kind of country Korea even is."
"Whoa, cleaner than the captain."
"Never thought a goalkeeper like that would come out of Korea. Live long enough and you see everything."
"Simon's going to have to step it up if he wants a goal today."
The players put on a show of calm, but Alexandro could tell those smiles were forced.
He smiled naturally himself and continued.
"We are not walking into a predator's mouth."
No matter how strong Bayern was, once they stood on the pitch they were just another football team.
The ball was round, and no one knew who would win until the final whistle.
"Think about the league. We're on a nine-game winning streak. Nine! Who built that? You did."
Recent surges always outshone early struggles in the memory.
A certain football legend, asked what his greatest strength was, had once answered: passion for the game.
That was how much the mindset at kickoff mattered.
Alexandro was planting the belief that they could win—and the confidence to match—into his players.
"Bayern Munich are the strongest? We can't reach the semis? Don't you want to show the people spouting that garbage that we can make the final four?!"
Confidence slowly returned to the players' faces.
The hunger to reach the semis, the fighting spirit, was visible now.
"This is the Emirates Stadium. Fans who believe in us are out there. They are always watching you."
Alexandro's speech ended, and they walked out onto the pitch.
In that instant—sixty thousand spectators and a sea of red kits—the Arsenal players forgot they had even been nervous as they stepped onto the grass.
Arsenal's home fans sang their chants with genuine belief that they could beat Bayern Munich.
At the same time, the Champions League anthem rolled out across the stadium.
No matter how many times you heard it, that song always felt new.
In the middle of it, Baek Yujin's eyes met Kim Minjun's.
"…"
"…"
Meeting as enemies now, they didn't exchange words.
Just a simple nod of recognition.
He did the same with Lee Juwon, and as if on cue the referee blew the whistle and the match began.
With Bayern the visitors, Arsenal seized the early initiative.
Using the 3-4-2-1 they had favored of late, they pushed possession as high as possible behind two attacking midfielders.
The passes kept circulating for a long stretch.
Then Padraig received the ball and whipped in a clean two-touch cross—only for Kim Minjun to get there first and head it clear, killing the chance.
Ten tense minutes of back-and-forth followed.
Whether they had finished adjusting to London or not, Munich began to attack.
Building from the back with excellent fundamentals, they worked the ball through tight spaces and carried it forward.
Possession flipped in an instant, and the flow of the game shifted with it.
Sensing it, Bayern's striker Valiet made a run into the channel; Wright tracked him automatically, and into the space he left stepped Jamal.
A pass came straight to Jamal from the flank.
With Wright stuck to Valiet, Jamal didn't hesitate—he curled it first-time with his left foot.
For a heartbeat the ball vanished behind a defender, but Adrian's exceptional tracking vision punched it away.
From that moment, Munich's ordinary attacking pattern kicked in.
CLANG—!
Valiet, free of his marker, hammered a long-range shot that smashed the crossbar; before Jamal could pounce on the rebound, Wright cleared it.
"Defend properly!"
Adrian roared at the uncharacteristically sloppy defending and finally caught his breath.
In that span every Munich player had already recovered into position.
A glimpse of why they sat first in the Bundesliga.
With attack and defense both carrying superior physical class, they could play whatever football they wanted.
Add a manager who bound it all together, and even the fine cracks in the wall were hard to find.
Then a chance came to Baek Yujin.
"Yujin!!"
Wright's long ball dropped onto Baek Yujin's feet.
"Davis!!"
Baek Yujin laid it off first-time and burst into the open space.
But Davis—who boasted the most overwhelming pace in the Arsenal squad—got caught by Munich's full-back, and the speed died out of the counter.
The break lost its teeth. Inside the box, Baek Yujin had lost the timing—but the ball still hadn't been won back.
He kept prowling the edge of the area looking for another opening, and Davis swung in a cross off his weaker foot.
Not his preferred side; the ball dropped clumsily outside the box.
Empty space. No one around.
Baek Yujin dragged center-back Meyer with him as he sprinted to meet it.
A workable gap from Meyer.
With his back to goal, Baek Yujin jumped. He bent his leg and took it on the outside of his right foot.
As the distance closed, his feet found the ground again.
Meyer arrived at his back and lunged to strip the ball—
Tap!
Baek Yujin, who had been waiting for the reverse-motion timing, used a reverse flip-flap to send the ball behind Meyer's back, turned cleanly through the spin, and in a single instant made a fool of the center-back caught on the wrong foot.
Clean touch, technique, turn—and the shot that followed.
A beat faster than Kim Minjun's sliding tackle, faster than Lee Juwon's tracking vision, the ball found the far corner and rippled the net.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!"
Scoring against one of the strongest sides in the world right now sent every kind of dopamine flooding through him.
Baek Yujin sprinted to the corner flag just like that, threw an uppercut at the sky, and stood looking out over the crowd.
Meeting every pair of eyes in that moment—
It was so electric he couldn't stop smiling.