Chapter 104
Chapter 104
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 104
Chapter Title: Mr. Hamstring and Mr. ACL -2
-----------------------------------------------------------------
[GOOOOOOAL—! Jakub Błaszczykowski’s shot rattles straight into Union Berlin’s net!!]
[The roaring Jakub Błaszczykowski! Huh? The broadcast camera suddenly cuts to Union Berlin’s bench?]
[Oh…! No way! Hamstring!! It’s the hamstring! Jürgen Klopp clutches his hamstring and collapses to the ground!]
[Park Chan-hyuk, the nearby manager, lets out a hollow laugh as he helps Jürgen Klopp to his feet.]
[Yes. The two are known to be close friends, aren’t they? Makes sense—they even pull the same stunts.]
└ Holy shit, no wonder it felt familiar. Park Chan-hyuk already blew out his ACL doing a celebration.
└ The legendary knee slide lololol
└ Traded a celebration for an ACL
└ Park Chan-hyuk = Korean Klopp lololol
└ Park Chan-hyuk went down with the ACL first, so doesn’t that make him the original?
└ Then Jürgen Klopp’s the German Park Chan-hyuk.
└ But Klopp’s been around longer?
└ Korean Klopp it is.
└ German Park Chan-hyuk and Korean Klopp’s chests swell with pride.
└ Guys, you know what’s really scary?
└ What?
└ That these two are the most talked-about soccer managers in Germany right now.
└ German soccer is doomed lol
***
To secure a victory against Dortmund, Union Berlin fielded their best eleven.
In a 3-5-2 formation, Union Berlin had Lewandowski and Yannick Foigt up top, with Son Heung-min, Thomas Müller, Shinji Kagawa, Luka Modrić, and Yuto Nagatomo behind them.
The back three fired up the Brazil connection as usual today, and Manuel Neuer guarded Union Berlin’s goal.
Even though they conceded a goal to Dortmund right at the start of the match.
It was less a tactical issue and more just bad luck.
‘Soccer’s a sport played by humans, not machines.’
I clapped from the touchline to encourage the players, then turned to look at Son Heung-min.
I could see Lee Young-bo constantly chatting with Son Heung-min since kickoff.
Son Heung-min looked unable to focus on the game with his senior yapping at him nonstop.
Son Heung-min just wore an awkward smile as he responded to Lee Young-bo.
‘I get how he feels.’
It was like a new hire getting bombarded with dad jokes by the section chief on their first day.
Even if he’d become a world-class player in the future, Son Heung-min was still a young kid now.
Unless he was a regressor like me, it was natural to freeze up or bluescreen when a big senior talked to you.
Most Korean players had grown up idolizing the legends of the 2002 World Cup, after all.
‘……Should I teach them the halftime midfield senior-junior heart-to-heart tackle technique?’
As I seriously pondered passing down my secret weapon, the ref’s whistle blew, and play resumed.
Dortmund’s formation today was a 4-2-3-1.
Weidenfeller was in goal, backed by Lee Young-bo, Subotić, Hummels, and Antonio Rukavina in the back four.
Sebastian Kehl and Zidane (not that Zidane) and others filled out the midfield.
‘……No one really worth marking closely.’
Right now, Dortmund was dominating more with Jürgen Klopp’s tactics than their players’ individual skills.
After playing Mainz in the 2. Bundesliga, Jürgen Klopp and I had become friends, and we’d talked tactics extensively ever since.
As a result, Klopp’s tactics had evolved rapidly.
‘Feels like I gave away too much….’
Well, chatting tactics with the guy who’d revive Liverpool got me a bit carried away.
Still, no regrets.
Talking with Jürgen Klopp had helped me refine my own tactical philosophy.
Tactics evolved through interaction with opponents, after all.
Tactics cooked up in a vacuum were just delusions.
And it wasn’t just Jürgen Klopp whose tactics were advancing quickly.
Soccer tactics across the Bundesliga were progressing faster than in my previous timeline.
Bayern Munich had tried transplanting Thomas Tuchel’s soccer only to roll back to Jürgen Klinsmann.
History had its advances and regressions, after all.
‘This must be the plot god’s grace, paving the way for Union Berlin’s championship.’
Anyway, after promotion last season, Union Berlin was now leading the league again, so even Bundesliga teams—beyond the lower leagues—were starting to analyze my tactics.
Frankly, getting analyzed wasn’t a problem.
If someone came up with something better, I’d just learn from it.
I still had plenty of future tactics up my sleeve that I hadn’t used yet.
The real issue for Union Berlin right now was the reputation that any prospect I picked was guaranteed to succeed.
‘……Gonna make it hard to snag players on the cheap from here on out.’
Clubs looking to sell prospects would jack up prices and play hardball once they knew Union Berlin was interested.
That could force Union Berlin into overpaying for players.
Especially if a starter got injured and we needed to fill the gap.
For reference, these kinds of deals weren’t just bad now—they were trouble for the future too.
Keep doing that, and you’d turn into a sucker… er, Manchester United in no time.
‘So the answer’s youth academy, automatically.’
If Union Berlin’s youth system consistently produced good players, our reputation would grow. That reputation would attract even more talent.
We could become Germany’s Barcelona.
With a scouter, steadily developing and promoting top prospects wasn’t impossible.
Unlike contracted pros, prospects had more freedom to transfer.
‘We’ve already got Jo Ji-won and Leon as two examples.’
Union Berlin’s current prospects had solid potential too. We just lacked 6-star ones, but the youth team had more 5-star potentials (like Yannick Foigt) than you’d think.
Parents of talented kids had started flocking to Union Berlin after hearing about the state-of-the-art facilities at the Iron and Blood (Eisen und Blut) training ground.
Some even relocated to the Kopenick area from abroad after hearing I was good at developing players.
Parents everywhere wanted their kids to train at the best places and succeed.
And back in our lower-league days, Union Berlin had scoured the entire Berlin region to stock up on prospects.
‘Tough on the body, but we nabbed a ton of good ones.’
Oh, and even among 5-stars, there’s a spectrum.
Some are rock-solid 5-stars pushing 6-star, others barely scraping by at 5-star.
Like the difference between peak 1st realm and late 1st realm in those cultivation novels.
Both 1st realm, but not treated the same.
Same went for soccer scouts.
‘The higher the stars, the bigger the gaps within them.’
Anyway.
In the Dortmund match, Robert Lewandowski—who looked unusually spry—bagged a goal.
“Whoooo—!”
I sprinted to Jürgen Klopp, flaunting my healthy hamstring.
With a side of “Your team’s striker was nuts” implied.
***
‘If Yannick hadn’t quit soccer midway… or if he’d met the boss just a bit earlier, what kind of player would he have become?’
Robert Lewandowski often thought that watching Yannick Foigt’s recent growth.
It was hard to believe an unknown player had transformed like this in just four years under Park Chan-hyuk.
‘The boss feels like someone who shows you exactly how to grow fast.’
Lewandowski felt lucky to have met Park Chan-hyuk early.
As Lewandowski nodded toward Park Chan-hyuk, Thiago Silva snuffed out Dortmund’s attack, sparking Union Berlin’s counter.
Luka Modrić’s pass went to Lewandowski, who spun naturally to shake off Subotić.
With Lee Young-bo dragged back to defend infiltrating space for Son Heung-min.
Lewandowski’s choice was Yannick Foigt.
He was Union Berlin’s clutch man right now.
Even self-assured Lewandowski wouldn’t deny it.
Still just a prospect, he was learning tons from Yannick’s movement and play.
Yannick Foigt and Robert Lewandowski were tight now—close enough to read each other’s minds with a glance.
Lewandowski usually kept work and personal strictly separate, but lately he’d been trying to connect more with teammates.
On Park Chan-hyuk’s advice.
That understanding teammates would lead to better play.
Lewandowski followed it without hesitation.
Park Chan-hyuk had never been wrong so far.
‘Last season it was promoting to the top flight, now we’re chasing the league title.’
He hung out with the Union Berlin squad, tightening team chemistry.
And the piece of Park Chan-hyuk’s advice Lewandowski liked most?
- Boss, what’s this called?
- TikTok. My little sister’s company just launched it. Fun, right? Wanna start a channel for stress relief vids?
TikTok app.
After assisting Yannick Foigt’s goal, Lewandowski joined him at the corner flag to bust out a trending TikTok challenge dance.
└ Argh my eyes what is that!
└ Oof. Levi’s dance skills all went into his soccer, huh.
Park Chan-hyuk had unleashed poison on the world.