The Special One
Jose Mourinho was a manager so gifted that he had earned the nickname the Special One.
He was also the only manager in history to have claimed league titles in Portugal, the Premier League, Serie A, and La Liga.
Mourinho was equally famous for the verbal barbs he hurled without regard for who stood on the receiving end — and the reason he could fire off those barbs so freely was the towering confidence he held in his own ability.
The most arrogant manager in the world, and one of the most brilliant. That was how football fans across the globe assessed Jose Mourinho.
And now, starting with the 2013/14 season, Mourinho had returned to the dugout of Chelsea — the club he had once commanded — sending the Blues' supporters into a frenzy of anticipation.
Under Mourinho this season, Chelsea's performances had been solid. Clearly better than before. The only knock against them was that the football had grown less entertaining.
That was because Mourinho practiced a ruthlessly pragmatic brand of football. When defending, his side sat so deep it was almost painful to watch, and only when an opponent left a genuine opening did they launch a proper attack.
Of course, when they were completely dominating a match, the more attacking approach could delight the fans — but how often, on the stage of the EPL, did a side truly overwhelm its opponent from start to finish?
As a result, Chelsea's matches rarely produced a flood of goals, and the games tended to drag on in dull, grinding fashion.
But not today.
In this Matchday 13 fixture, Mourinho's Chelsea had abandoned their usual caution and were hammering Southampton with an aggressive, high-tempo approach. Southampton simply could not cope.
By the time the first half ended, the score stood at 3–0.
"Wooooah! Mourinho really is the greatest manager alive!"
"Hahaha! Chelsea under Mourinho is just different!"
"Southampton's been on a tear, have they? What a joke! We're the champions!"
The roar of the Chelsea faithful thundered through the home ground.
A thick smile curled across Jose Mourinho's lips.
That's right. Cheer louder. This is what the Special One looks like.
The self-adoring manager savored every decibel of the crowd's reaction. At the same time, another thought settled in his mind.
I like this.
With the way they were playing, they could pile on even more goals in the second half. They could reduce Southampton's so-called storm to nothing more than a faint breeze.
And then the second half began.
Except—
"What?"
The flow of the match was suddenly off. The game was unfolding in a way that did not match Jose Mourinho's expectations at all. This was not supposed to happen.
Southampton's tactics had not changed from the first half. And yet the atmosphere on the pitch was shifting.
One of the finest managers in the world, Jose Mourinho, knew exactly where the change was coming from.
"That little brat…!"
He ground his molars hard. A single kid was daring to rattle his carefully constructed system — and doing it while trailing 3–0, in a situation that should have been pure despair.
He had to shut it down fast. The younger they were, the easier they were to break.
Mourinho called over the nearest player.
"Ivanovic!"
All Stats +8
Speed: 109
The moment the second half kicked off, every one of Jung Hyuk's attributes jumped by eight points. Thanks to that boost, his movement looked nothing like it had in the first half. His speed attribute alone now sat at a staggering 109.
What the hell?
Ramires, who had been shadowing Jung Hyuk all afternoon, wore a look of pure bewilderment. His own stamina had dipped slightly since the first half — yet Jung Hyuk was somehow moving even fresher than before.
Worse still—
Why is he even faster now?!
Jung Hyuk's pace had already been among the best in the league, making him a nightmare to track. And now he had gotten quicker still. It defied all reason.
And then—
Why has his dribbling gotten this precise?
The way he manipulated the ball had grown sharper, cleaner. In the first half, with Ivanovic's help, Ramires had managed to snuff out the occasional breakthrough. Now even that felt impossible. Jung Hyuk's ball control was so maddeningly refined that the ball simply would not leave his feet.
It was the same right now.
Thud!
Ramires slammed into Jung Hyuk mid-dribble with everything he had — a full-blooded charge from a player built like a tank. Most footballers would have gone sprawling or at least been badly rattled. Jung Hyuk did not fall. He staggered, but his center of gravity barely shifted. Instead he snapped a sudden change of direction and slipped free of the pressure.
"Ah, for real — what is this guy?!"
Ramires spat the words in frustration as he watched Jung Hyuk's back pull rapidly away. Free of the challenge, Jung Hyuk drove the ball long and sprinted. The burst of speed was so explosive that Chelsea's entire defensive line went into emergency mode.
Slash! Ivanovic launched into a sliding tackle — following Mourinho's order to be bold, to go in hard without fear.
But—
Tap! Jung Hyuk flicked the ball lightly into the air and jumped. With that single motion he sailed over both the ball and Ivanovic's sliding challenge. The instant his boots found the grass again, he gathered the ball with a soft touch and kept running.
Tap— whoosh! Having broken free down the flank, Jung Hyuk turned his head. In his field of vision, Oh Jung-hoon was locked down by John Terry.
A cross won't work.
John Terry — Chelsea legend, defensive cornerstone. High defensive intelligence, elite ability, and natural leadership. A World Class centre-back operating at the absolute peak of the game. His level was still far beyond what Oh Jung-hoon could overcome.
Knowing that, Jung Hyuk abandoned the idea of floating a cross.
I'll have to break through myself.
Still racing along the wing, he cut inside toward the penalty area. A player stepped into his path — Gary Cahill, Chelsea's centre-back, wearing that trademark look of unhurried composure.
"Not through here."
If John Terry was the general who read the game and directed the defensive line, Gary Cahill was the knight who executed those orders — and a knight of considerable defensive quality at that.
Right now, Cahill was listening carefully to the shouts coming from behind him.
"Gary! That kid is two-footed, so stay square in front of him! And keep your stance lower — be ready to react the second he tries to go past!"
The instructions came rapid-fire, but every word landed cleanly in Cahill's ears.
What a pain.
Jung Hyuk's expression hardened as he glanced at Terry. The man really was something else — diagnosing exactly how to stop him and feeding the information to his partner in real time.
But knowing the method and being able to execute it were two different things. If they were the same, Gary Cahill would already have been hailed as the best defender in the world. Jung Hyuk knew him as an excellent centre-back, yes — but not one who belonged in that absolute top tier.
Besides, the advantage was his. He had already driven into Chelsea's box, and with both feet available, his options were plentiful.
Whoosh! Flick! Jung Hyuk nudged the ball forward in short, teasing touches, constantly baiting Cahill. He could not afford to waste time. Behind him, full-back Ivanovic would be sprinting back with everything he had. Once elite defenders surrounded him, even Jung Hyuk would struggle to force a way through.
So he looked to settle it quickly.
Tap— tap! Even while dribbling, he scanned the movement of his teammates.
Oh Jung-hoon is still locked down, and Adam Lallana…
Every nearby teammate was already under heavy pressure. There was no one free to receive a pass. With no help available, Jung Hyuk's choice was simple: break through alone.
Jung Hyuk's face was deadly serious. Every trace of a smile had vanished. Gary Cahill was not an opponent you could face with anything less than full commitment. You had to give everything just to have a chance of beating him.
Whoosh! Still advancing with short touches, Jung Hyuk suddenly dropped his upper body forward — a feint. Cahill flinched for a split second, but he did not bite. John Terry's voice had reached him from behind.
"Don't fall for the fake! Watch him all the way!"
Terry's commanding ability was genuinely difficult to deal with. For his teammates it was a rock of reassurance; for any attacker trying to break the line, it was pure irritation.
Then Jung Hyuk suddenly raised the tempo. He sold another feint as if about to launch into a phantom dribble, rocked his upper body hard to the right — whoosh — and then tap! snapped left. In that tight space Cahill could not plant a foot cleanly, and the movement after the feint was razor-sharp.
Hup— he's going this way?!
Startled, Cahill tried to close him down as Jung Hyuk drove deeper. But Jung Hyuk shrugged him off and kept going. Tap! He had cut all the way to the face of goal. Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech rushed off his line.
And in that instant, Jung Hyuk's leg moved — a short, clean, economical motion.
Tok!
A shot aimed straight through Cech's legs. The ball slipped between them as if greased, vanishing into the gap.
Swish—
It was a finish of ice-cold composure, the kind that almost never appeared in such a frantic scramble. It was also the class of a man who had once finished third in the Ballon d'Or.
In a match where Southampton had been relentlessly overrun, Jung Hyuk's goal was rain after a long drought — the spark that let the players lift their heads and find their fire again.
But momentum alone could not close the gulf in quality between the two sides.
Southampton had started the match missing a large portion of their first-choice lineup and had been dominated throughout the first half. Their opponents were Chelsea — a powerhouse you could not be certain of beating even with a full-strength squad. For a depleted Southampton, raw spirit was never going to be enough to take them down.
The score had briefly become 3–1 after Jung Hyuk's strike. Moments later, Eden Hazard's surging run set up Fernando Torres, and it was 4–1. For Torres, whose form had been poor of late, it was a precious goal.
Mourinho did not stop there. Determined to bury Southampton completely, he introduced Frank Lampard and Demba Ba and pushed even more aggressively. Lampard, who came on in the seventieth minute, needed only five minutes to remind everyone why he ranked among the finest long-range shooters on the planet.
Thwack!
A mid-range strike that made the net billow violently. Southampton goalkeeper Artur Boruc slammed a clenched fist into the turf in helpless frustration.
There would be no fairytale ending.
Jung Hyuk forced two more shots and continued to beat Ivanovic on the dribble, but he could not manufacture another goal. Petr Cech produced a super save, and John Terry cleared nearly every cross Jung Hyuk delivered.
Peeep! Peep!
Full time.
The final score: 5–1.
For Chelsea, a result that felt like pure release. For Southampton, a nightmare almost too ugly to believe.
The moment the whistle blew, the English press tore into Southampton and manager Mauricio Pochettino.
In response, Mauricio Pochettino took to the official podium and tried to steady a shaken dressing room. "It was a necessary rotation," he insisted. "The first-team players' condition has improved significantly. The next match will be different."
But contrary to those words, Southampton went into Matchday 14 and fell 3–2 to Aston Villa FC, wobbling once again.
Even worse, Jung Hyuk had contributed a goal and an assist and Oh Jung-hoon had scored one of his own — both had performed well — and the team had still lost. Southampton fans could not contain their fury.
Korean supporters, in particular, flooded community boards the moment the Aston Villa match ended, venting without restraint.
Korean football fans wanted Jung Hyuk and Oh Jung-hoon to move to a better team. But it was a wish with little grounding in reality. Neither player had even completed a full season since their debuts, and of course their contracts still had time remaining. It was not entirely impossible — but it was not something that would happen easily either.
With fan discontent continuing to swell, the next fixture approached. And when Southampton supporters checked the opponent, a deep collective sigh escaped them.
In a moment when the team desperately needed to regain momentum as quickly as possible, the side they had drawn was simply too strong.
The mere sound of the name was enough to make the lungs empty.
Southampton's next opponent was Manchester City — the team currently producing the finest football of the entire 2013/14 EPL season.