Show Them on the Pitch
The moment Jose Mourinho's taunting interview hit the news, Oh Jung-hoon, who had been resting in the dorms, completely lost it.
"Whoa! What is this guy's problem? Why does he talk like such a jerk?"
Park Young-nam, sitting beside him, piled on.
"Right? Did he really need to go that far?"
"See? Even you think he's a pain, hyung?"
"Yeah. That was a bit much."
"Ugh… we really should've found a way to win that last match!"
Jung Hyuk, on the other hand, barely paid it any mind. He was spending his time on bodyweight training, same as always. Watching him, Oh Jung-hoon tilted his head and asked,
"Hyuk, aren't you pissed?"
Jung Hyuk turned to look at him.
"Huh? About what?"
"What do you mean, 'about what'? Didn't you see Mourinho's interview?"
"I saw it."
"Then how are you so calm? He completely disrespected us! And he disrespected Coach Pochettino's tactics too! Argh! Next time we face them…"
That was when Jung Hyuk cut through Oh Jung-hoon's rant with a single line.
"What's the point of getting worked up now? Just show them on the pitch."
"…Huh?"
Jung Hyuk kept going.
"We're soccer players. If Mourinho talks trash about us, we prove him wrong in the match. That's it."
"Well, yeah, that's true, but…"
"No matter how much we rant and rage in here, if we lose on the field, he was right. And then we'd look like complete idiots."
"…"
"We win first. Then we can talk back to Mourinho all we want. Either way, we lost to Chelsea last time, didn't we? And it wasn't even a hard-fought battle—we got completely dismantled."
"…Yeah, that's fair."
"So instead of burning energy getting mad, wouldn't it be smarter to figure out how to beat John Terry?"
"Hey! Why are you bringing up John Terry all of a sudden?"
Oh Jung-hoon's face crumpled. The memory of getting thoroughly schooled by John Terry in the last Chelsea match had come flooding back.
"Can't help it. If you can't get past John Terry, we might end up with the exact same result."
Then, as if the scowl had never been there, Oh Jung-hoon grinned and glued himself to Jung Hyuk's side.
"What? Why are you so close? Get off."
Jung Hyuk frowned and put some distance between them. Oh Jung-hoon stuck right back to him.
"Seriously, what is it? What do you want?"
When Jung Hyuk finally snapped and asked, Oh Jung-hoon put on a pitiful face and got to the point.
"…Teach me how to beat John Terry."
Just before the Round 20 match between Southampton and Chelsea, a huge number of Korean fans were, of course, rooting for Southampton—the club where Jung Hyuk and Oh Jung-hoon played. They also hoped the two of them would knock Jose Mourinho, Chelsea's manager, down a peg.
A few days later, 2013 came to an end and 2014 began. And with it, the day of the Round 20 match between Southampton and Chelsea finally arrived. With both clubs' pride on the line, the fixture drew an unusual amount of attention. Proof of that was everywhere—St Mary's Stadium was packed so full that not a single empty seat could be found.
Then it happened.
Wooooaaaah!
The crowd, which had been buzzing with pre-match chatter, suddenly erupted in a roar. The players were walking out onto the pitch.
"Being at home still feels good!"
Oh Jung-hoon, a year older now that the calendar had flipped, looked around at the stands with a bright grin. His face was full of confidence—or, depending how you looked at it, pure overexcitement. Jung Hyuk said nothing about it.
He plays better when he's amped up.
Jung Hyuk knew that Oh Jung-hoon produced his best performances when he was the center of attention and running hot. If anything, he wanted him even more fired up.
What a weird guy.
Still, he didn't fully get it. After exchanging handshakes with the Chelsea players a short while later, Jung Hyuk kept scanning their positions. He was calling up each player's traits and playing style, sketching out in his head what tactics Chelsea might have brought and how they would play. It might have been unnecessary for some people. For Jung Hyuk, it was critical work.
Of course it was. The starting lineups had already been announced before kickoff, but the opponent's actual tactics had not. Today's Chelsea had lined up in their usual 4-2-3-1, but once the whistle blew, they could shift into something entirely different. It was more than possible—it was already common practice. Soccer was a sport where a single formation could be deployed in any number of styles. And if anyone would pull that kind of switch, it was Jose Mourinho.
So Jung Hyuk had already researched every player's characteristics, and now he was reading their positions to prepare for any variables that might appear. And then—
As he swept his eyes across the Chelsea side, Jung Hyuk's gaze sharpened. He had spotted something off.
André Schürrle starting as a winger? And Hazard at attacking midfielder?
In that moment, a single word floated up in Jung Hyuk's mind: …why?
As a winger, Hazard was the superior player to Schürrle. So putting Hazard out wide and slotting Juan Mata or Oscar—both of whom could play the number ten role to perfection—into the attacking midfielder spot would have made more sense. Of course, Schürrle was an excellent winger in his own right, and Hazard was outstanding both as an attacking midfielder and as a winger. It was a perfectly plausible setup.
But Jung Hyuk couldn't shake the suspicion.
There's no way Mourinho just parks Hazard at attacking midfielder and leaves it at that. He's going to keep switching Hazard with Mata and Schürrle to torment Southampton's fullbacks.
Knowing just how sharp Jose Mourinho was, Jung Hyuk worked to read his thinking as thoroughly as possible. At the same time, he was already turning over how to break the Special One's tactics. And finding the answer didn't take long. Of course it didn't. Jung Hyuk was a player who had come back from the year 2033, from a more advanced era of the game. He had experienced and studied tactics newer and more numerous than anything this era had to offer.
Then the referee raised the whistle to his lips—the signal that the match was about to begin. Jung Hyuk cleared the thoughts crowding his head. The plan for facing Chelsea was already locked in. Now it was time to focus on the game.
Let's go at them first.
Peeeep!
The match kicked off. Southampton began circulating the ball. Lined up in a 4-2-3-1, they had come out with a counterattacking approach. That was why, among the five midfielders, Jung Hyuk had been placed at the tip—the attacking midfielder role. The idea was simple: absorb Chelsea's attacks, then use Jung Hyuk's blistering speed and dribbling to create goals.
And Jung Hyuk, starting as the number ten, dropped so deep when they weren't on the break that he might as well have been a central midfielder, dictating the tempo from there. This was the role Pochettino had settled on after long deliberation. The drawback was obvious—Jung Hyuk's stamina would take a beating, constantly shuttling between attack and defense—but if they wanted to hold their own in midfield and keep the balance of both ends of the pitch, there was no other choice. More than anything, Jung Hyuk himself had said with full confidence that he could handle it.
And right now, he was proving exactly why.
Thump. Jung Hyuk took the ball Jack Cork fed him, brushed past a charging Hazard as if he weren't even there, and linked it on to Adam Lallana. Southampton's entire attacking build-up ran through Jung Hyuk. Every time, he drew at least one defender before releasing the ball to a teammate. That small act of pulling a man out of position gave Southampton's players just a little more room to work the ball—and that small difference produced a massive result.
Before long, Jung Hyuk had advanced all the way to the edge of Chelsea's defensive line and received the ball again. Whoosh. He sold a body feint, then took the pass—a movement designed to scramble the opponent's thoughts even further. The moment the ball arrived, Jung Hyuk swung his leg as if to shoot. Gary Cahill came flying in. Jung Hyuk didn't force it. He laid the ball off to Oh Jung-hoon—but he did it looking the opposite direction of the pass, so the defender wouldn't read it. The eye fake into the pass completely sold Gary Cahill. He even tried to charge Jung Hyuk when the ball was already gone.
Jung Hyuk simply slipped past the onrushing Cahill. Whoosh. Gary Cahill went sprawling to the ground, and the ball found Oh Jung-hoon.
And standing in Oh Jung-hoon's path was Chelsea's legendary defender, John Terry. True to form as a canny old center back, Terry needled him.
"Long time no see, kid~!"
Oh Jung-hoon had been studying English steadily, and by now he could understand and speak short phrases. He caught every word of John Terry's greeting. His mouth curled into a wide grin, and with the most irritating expression he could muster, he fired right back.
"Yeah, long time. Has-been."
"What?"
John Terry's eyes went wide as he glared at Oh Jung-hoon. But Oh Jung-hoon wasn't looking at him. He was watching Jung Hyuk sprint into the space behind, and he swung his leg.
"Jung Hyuk!"
"…!"
The moment Oh Jung-hoon bellowed the name and cocked his leg, John Terry spun desperately to cut off the passing lane—an outstanding, near-instantaneous adjustment that closed the angle in a heartbeat. The problem was that the pass was a fake. Jung Hyuk was the bait. For John Terry, he was the kind of bait you had no choice but to bite on.
"Damn it!"
John Terry's face twisted. Instinct told him he was in trouble. By worrying about Jung Hyuk running in behind, he had given Oh Jung-hoon space—and Oh Jung-hoon didn't hesitate for a second. He swung through the ball.
BOOM!
A shot from just outside the penalty box. Close enough, powerful enough, and the trajectory was perfect. Petr Cech launched himself. With his massive frame and elite agility, he stretched a long arm toward the ball—
But the ball buried itself in the net faster than Cech's hand could get there.
Swish!
Twentieth minute of the first half. The perfect combination from Oh Jung-hoon and Jung Hyuk—completely fooling John Terry, one of the world's finest defenders and a Chelsea legend—had arrived.