Manchester City Has No Roots

After their satisfying victory, Arsenal had to prepare for the next match right away.

Three fixtures were packed into the following week, so thorough preparation and careful stamina management were essential.

Round 34 began with an away match against Aston Villa.

Baek Yujin opened the scoring with a clean trap followed by a silky shooting motion.

Immediately afterward, Aston Villa—chasing a Champions League spot from the upper half of the table—threw everything they had at Arsenal’s goal.

Yet Arsenal, still hunting first place, refused to concede ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠easily.

Instead, Arsenal drove home the dagger and walked away with the three points.

Round 35 at the Emirates Stadium against West Ham United.

The match drifted along without major crises or goals until the eighty-ninth minute of the second half.

Baek Yujin buried a theater goal and once more claimed the points.

At the same time Manchester City managed only one win and one loss, closing the gap on first place.

Round 36 away at Brentford.

With barely any rest between matches, exhaustion was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠plain on every Arsenal face. A thin squad made substitutions difficult as well, so the fatigue was understandable.

Perhaps that was why.

They conceded the first goal to Brentford.

Arsenal refused to go quietly and attacked with everything they had, yet several dangerous chances came and went without a finish.

They finally equalized and settled for a draw.

Two wins, one draw.

Are we not going to take first place?

They had finally climbed into second, yet the awkward points gap left him tilting his head—until an article about Manchester City’s match appeared.

The match ended in a draw.

In other words, the points gap between Arsenal and Manchester City was now only two.

Two consecutive wins and we can take the title.

Possibility had appeared.

Everything would be decided in the away match a week later.

If Manchester City won, the title was theirs. If Arsenal won, it would go down to the final thirty-eighth round.

Before they knew it, mid-May had arrived—Round 37.

Manchester City waited for Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium.

Juan, manager of Manchester City, was deep in thought.

What should I do?

He was about to face an Arsenal side whose form was completely different from the first half of the season.

They were clearly mid-table…

Early in the season Arsenal had recorded three wins, three draws, and three losses and sat in mid-table. They had been no threat at all; City had beaten them 3–1 in the first half, and Arsenal had never climbed into the top half afterward.

Then, at some point, everything changed.

That same team began stacking points with a completely different level of performance—so different it felt as if the players themselves had transformed—and now, on a miraculous fourteen-match unbeaten run, they were threatening first place.

Is it all because of Yujin…?

Even if he hated to admit it, Yujin’s influence was the greatest factor.

He had brought Alexandro’s high-tempo football close to perfection, and his creativity kept generating attacking points. Combined with Seoin, who had arrived earlier, the chemistry was so good that Arsenal’s miracle unbeaten streak became possible.

Every time Juan watched the analysis footage, Yujin was performing, and the worry only grew deeper.

Then one day—

“Boss. Yujin’s mentality is weak.”

“Is that true?”

A coach approached Juan while he was still wrestling with tactics and passed on something he had heard somewhere.

“Yes.”

“In that case…”

Weak mentality.

Watching the boy smile every day made the claim hard to believe, yet there was no downside to trying. If a little mental jab produced a poor performance in the next match, it was pure profit.

Trash talk was part of the game.

Even if the mentality was strong, a boy that young could still be shaken by a single article.

The war between Arsenal and Manchester City had already begun a week before kickoff.

Juan never imagined it would produce the exact opposite result.

“What the hell…”

The moment I got home and turned on my phone, a strange article filled the screen.

Manchester City manager Juan was talking about me.

Huh. So it’s real.

I read it slowly and realized it was genuine.

Trying to keep me in check?

There was no way words like that would break my mentality, yet a hollow laugh still escaped me—at the opposing manager who actually thought this would be enough to crack me.

They’re treating me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like I’m made of glass.

I wasn’t even angry, so I planned to just let it slide.

That is, until Manchester City players and our own players started trading trash talk.

“Hmm…”

I sat at my desk and tapped the armrest with my fingers.

I already know I’m lucky.

By pure luck I had joined an injury-riddled U20 squad, performed well, and received an offer from Arsenal. It was a first-team offer; I showed well in training and earned a debut. If I hadn’t looked good in training I would have been sent straight to the reserves, and I wouldn’t be here now.

Both skill and luck had brought me this far.

I’m not really angry… but who was that again?

Linebri Kjell, Linebri Kjell…

The name was far too familiar. I kept turning it over until one fact suddenly flashed through my mind.

Ah! It’s that guy.

Linebri Kjell.

The bastard who injured Seong Yumin.

After struggling through contract and financial issues to reach Barcelona, Yumin had finally played in the Champions League when Kjell—who had just been made captain—drove a deep tackle into Yumin’s ankle. Yumin had been dribbling a bit recklessly, true, but that injury was the decisive reason he lasted only three years at Barcelona.

It hadn’t been intentional, of course, yet I had watched my friend’s early international retirement from afar, so the anger was inevitable.

And that same you decided to touch me?

Originally I had no intention of joining this fight. It was a little funny, and I didn’t feel like wasting energy.

But if it was the guy who had hurt my friend, that was a different story.

I was already hot and irritated; now I was properly pissed.

I wiped every trace of a smile from my face and thought seriously.

What do Manchester City players hate again?

I knew most of what they liked and disliked. After all, most of them had been famous players in my previous life. Whether I wanted to or not, I knew which buttons were sensitive.

That included Linebri Kjell.

I knew exactly what his flaw was.

Manchester City picked the wrong person to mess with.

I would use the weakness I already knew and show them what real trash talk looked like—clean trash talk without a single curse word.

This would be my first time speaking out, but if I were to speak from the résumé of my previous life…

Half a year as a sports agent, one year as a tactical coach thanks to Lee Eunho’s help, a little journalism on the side. Clothing startup work, marketing department, advertising and PR, writing all sorts of pieces, even following my career-woman wife Jia into a major corporation for a while.

In the short span of ten years I had tried almost every job imaginable while searching for something that suited me. In the end it had all been remote work, but still.

Thinking about it like that, it really is a lot.

The common thread was that most of those jobs required talking to people. To put it simply, I knew exactly how to make people angry when I spoke to them, and how to persuade them.

That skill worked just as well for trash talk.

I had come to end this fight.

The next day.

Just as the noise between Manchester City and Arsenal was beginning to quiet down, my interview dropped onto the internet.

It began with my not-quite-compliment that targeted Kjell’s well-known insecurity about his appearance.

A bomb of a statement that blew the lids clean off every Manchester City fan’s head.