The Volley That Set St. Mary's Ablaze
The first half between Manchester City and Southampton was unfolding.
Jung Hyuk's grip on midfield was shining bright.
Having conceded early, Manchester City had grown frantic, and Jung Hyuk exploited that very psychology to dictate the tempo. It was the seasoned, veteran management of a man who had already lived a lifetime of football.
And even now.
Yaya Touré forced a hurried forward pass—Jung Hyuk snuffed it out cleanly. In one fluid motion he rose and laid the ball off to Adam Lallana nearby. Lallana immediately threaded a pass into the path of Luke Shaw, who was already surging forward on the overlap.
Thud! Shaw collected it and tore down Manchester City's flank. Right-back Pablo Zabaleta stepped across to cut him off, yet Shaw's advance never slowed.
Instead he used a teammate. Oh Jung-hoon, back to central defender Vincent Kompany, absorbed the physical battle and returned the ball into the path of the charging full-back.
Shaw exploded all the way to the corner-flag line and whipped a low, driven cut-back across the face of goal.
The player racing onto that ball was none other than Jung Hyuk. Yaya Touré chased hard behind him, but he could not match the speed.
Jung Hyuk swung his leg through the rolling ball—not with raw power, but with perfect, clean contact.
Boom—
Kompany lunged desperately, stretching a long leg, but he was a fraction late.
The shot, fully accelerated, screamed toward the net as if it would rip the goal open then and there.
"No!"
Vincent Kompany roared.
Manchester City goalkeeper Costel Pantilimon's eyes flew wide as he hurled himself across. His mind was filled with a single absolute: they could not concede a second. Pure will to keep the ball out burned through him.
And that will produced a miracle.
His fingertips brushed the shot that was arrowing into the corner. Thok! The ball struck the post and rebounded out.
A breathtaking super save that dragged Manchester City back from the brink.
Yet the rebound flew straight into the path of Jung Hyuk, still outside the penalty area.
In that instant Jung Hyuk whipped his leg high and smashed a first-time volley.
While Jung Hyuk threatened Manchester City's goal with that direct long-range strike, manager Manuel Pellegrini clenched his fists so hard they trembled and muttered under his breath.
"Please! Not 2-0!"
When Pantilimon somehow kept it out, the manager exploded in pure delight.
"Hahaha! Yes! That's the Pantilimon I know!"
Only a keeper standing well over two metres could have produced that save. Pellegrini gazed at him with proud eyes.
The pride lasted only a heartbeat.
The moment he saw Jung Hyuk wind up for the volley on the rebound, the manager's face drained of colour.
"What the hell—he's hitting that?!"
And then—
The ball, struck cleanly by Jung Hyuk's swinging leg, buried itself in the bottom corner of the far post before Pantilimon could even rise from the ground.
Pellegrini tore at his own hair and unleashed a raw, furious scream.
"Aaaaaaaargh!"
At the same moment, Mauricio Pochettino could not hide his expression.
He stared at Jung Hyuk with open astonishment. The young midfielder was calmly raising two fingers in celebration.
"Heh... that kid is turning into more and more of a monster."
A proud smile curved across Pochettino's lips.
And he was not the only one smiling with quiet pride.
Jung Hyuk himself wore a deeply satisfied smile as he looked at the message floating before his eyes.
You attempted a shot from a difficult position and produced a fantastic goal!
As a reward, Shooting has increased by 1.
Current Shooting: 81
He had taken the risk of striking from an awkward body position and, luckily, it had gone in. The sweet reward of a raised shooting stat followed.
I should start practising more acrobatic finishes from now on.
It seemed he would need to attempt even more spectacular shots in the future.
After Jung Hyuk's second goal, Southampton dropped into a compact defensive shape against Manchester City. Jung Hyuk himself dropped deep and focused entirely on snuffing out attacks.
The whistle blew.
Despite throwing everything forward, Manchester City could not score before half-time ended.
The second half, however, told a different story.
As legs grew heavy, Southampton's defensive line began to creak—especially the full-backs.
Seeing this, Pellegrini withdrew James Milner and introduced Jesús Navas, whose ability to beat a man and deliver dangerous crosses was exceptional. He also replaced Álvaro Negredo with Edin Džeko, a towering aerial threat, fully targeting Southampton's weaknesses.
In the 60th minute the newly introduced Džeko rose to meet a Navas cross and pulled a goal back. Later, from a free-kick scramble, Sergio Agüero added a second. The score was 2-2, and the entire momentum of the match had swung to Manchester City.
In that storm Jung Hyuk worked even harder, covering every blade of grass in midfield to support his teammates. With the trait One with Strong Stamina active, every one of his attributes had risen by three; his movements were sharper and more precise than ever.
Both sides hunted desperately for the next goal.
Thud. Thud. Yaya Touré drove forward with the ball.
Manchester City's midfielder possessed the finest physique in the Premier League and every attribute a midfielder needed—dribbling, passing, shooting. He was a true World Class player.
Yet this season Touré had not been the force of previous years. Whether from poor conditioning or simple fatigue, his tank-like dribbling of peak form was missing.
Class, however, is permanent. Touré remained indispensable to Manchester City and proved it every match. Even now he shrugged off Jay Rodriguez and produced a dangerous carry.
That was when Jung Hyuk came flying in. He closed the distance at full sprint and slammed into Touré with everything he had. Give the Ivorian space and a cannon of a shot could arrive at any moment; Jung Hyuk knew it and refused to allow any room.
The two collided.
Thud!
"Ugh!"
Jung Hyuk's face twisted. The air left his lungs. Colliding with most strong players felt like hitting rock; colliding with Yaya Touré felt like running into solid steel.
This guy's physicality was 100, wasn't it?
The sheer presence of a player with a physicality rating of 100 was overwhelming. Jung Hyuk's own physicality sat at a respectable 83, and years of weight training plus a low centre of gravity in the challenge kept him upright. He clung to Touré with stubborn, relentless pressure.
"Get off me!"
Touré scowled and shot a look at the referee, clearly asking for a foul. The referee did nothing. Jung Hyuk's challenge was physical, but it was not illegal.
In the end Touré, face twisted with irritation, forced a pass to a nearby teammate.
The result was poor.
Touré's stamina was far below his prime, and the late stage of the match had drained him further. Concentration frayed, the hurried pass never found its target cleanly.
Victor Wanyama stepped in, intercepted, and immediately fed Jung Hyuk.
A counter-attack materialised in a heartbeat.
Jung Hyuk's eyes flashed. In his vision Oh Jung-hoon was already sprinting at full tilt, trying to split Manchester City's defensive line.
Failing to find a runner like that would disqualify any claim to World Class midfield play.
Naturally, Jung Hyuk launched a long ball straight into Oh Jung-hoon's path.
Boom!
The pass was perfect.
With a Passing rating of only 75 it should have been difficult to drop an accurate long ball onto a sprinting Oh Jung-hoon, yet fortune smiled. An S-class special effect activated at that exact moment and transformed the pass into a delivery-service special.
Oh Jung-hoon controlled it cleanly and finished with ice-cold composure, making the score 3-2.
From that point Southampton threw their bodies on the line and successfully weathered every Manchester City assault.
The result:
By beating Manchester City, Southampton had once again set course for the league title.
Riding the wave, they produced the same terrifying form they had shown at the start of the season and kept winning.
Jung Hyuk's opener set the tone; Southampton added two more and beat Newcastle 3-1.
In the 17th-round clash with Tottenham, a fierce battle ended with Jung Hyuk recording two assists and guiding his side to victory.
In the 18th round neither Jung Hyuk nor Oh Jung-hoon featured; Southampton were held to a 0-0 draw by Cardiff City. Yet in the 19th round both returned to the starting eleven, each scored once, and Southampton defeated Everton 2-1.
Aside from that single draw with Cardiff, Southampton looked formidable in almost every match.
By this point the club's supporters could no longer find anything to criticise.
It was only natural. Southampton were already producing results that far exceeded any fan's expectations. They were rewriting the club's history with every performance.
So now the fans simply watched with racing hearts.
And they prayed.
How far can Southampton really go?
At this pace they might achieve something no one ever imagined!
Could Southampton... actually win the Premier League?
They wanted the revived storm to keep blowing until the final whistle of the season.
Yet a new emotion began to stir among those same supporters: unease.
It came from the opponent waiting in the 20th round.
They were about to meet the same Chelsea side that had inflicted a humiliating 5-1 thrashing in the 13th round—the side managed by the Special One himself, José Mourinho.
That knowledge kept the fans' anxiety simmering right up to match day.
And when the fixture drew near, that anxiety transformed into pure rage.
The cause was an official interview given by José Mourinho.
True to his image as the master of the cutting remark, Mourinho delivered a blatant provocation—one that simultaneously dismissed both Southampton's players and Mauricio Pochettino.
Southampton fans erupted in fury.
"Isn't that a bit arrogant? Who does he think he is, looking down on Southampton?!"
"Damn it! I hope we never lose to that guy again!"
"Please—just beat Chelsea!"
At the same time they prayed with fierce intensity.
They wanted Mauricio Pochettino's Southampton to crush Mourinho's arrogance into the dirt.
They wanted perfect revenge for the previous humiliation.
And now—
the players of Southampton and Chelsea walked out together into St. Mary's Stadium.