The Continental Pissing Match
Cristiano Ronaldo's sudden tirade against the Asian football world left ordinary Asians, who had been living their lives in peace, utterly bewildered.
The rise of AI was like rebuilding the Tower of Babel that had collapsed in biblical times.
The barrier of language that had divided all of humanity crumbled in an instant. And into that world came the news that Cristiano Ronaldo, a living legend of football, was denouncing the Asian Football Association.
Not long after—
Ronaldo's social media began to erupt as Asians from every corner of the continent poured in.
Having posted his denunciation of the Asian football world, Cristiano Ronaldo went down in a blaze of glory.
Mockery rained down on Ronaldo's feed, accusing him of believing Asia was a single nation.
Unable to stomach it any longer, Ronaldo fired back with another post:
Ronaldo had unleashed the "Real World" on Asian football fans. Worse still, he hadn't even listened when Joo Jae-rim tried to stop him.
All he had to do was admit he'd made a typo and move on. But Ronaldo's towering ego simply could not permit such a concession.
And so began a battle of pride between one man and an entire continent. Cristiano Ronaldo was, truly, a great enough man to take on a continent all by himself.
While a festival of the whole world raged across Cristiano Ronaldo's social media—
"Why is that bastard Ronaldo acting up all of a sudden? Did something happen with Joo Jae-rim?"
"...They say he was recently disciplined."
"For what?!"
"For harming team cohesion, apparently."
"...Given what I saw of him on that show, I can believe it, but what exactly was the reason?"
The place where these grim faces were assessing the situation was the Korea Football Association. They had realized that while Ronaldo was nominally attacking Asia, his words were really aimed at them.
At the moment, most people were too busy enjoying the "festival" to pay attention, but once it ended, they would inevitably begin searching for the cause in earnest. Before that could happen, the association needed to get a handle on exactly what had occurred.
Seeing the sparks flying toward the football association, I quietly slipped away. But Ronaldo's dumbass temper tantrum had blown the problem up far bigger than I'd anticipated.
His denunciation of the entire Asian continent was drawing attention from around the globe.
...Why does this bastard go around setting fires and then screaming about them?
The media began hunting me down for an explanation of Ronaldo's sudden anti-Asia crusade. And not just Korean media—Japanese outlets and foreign press from all over came knocking too.
I sighed as I looked down at the reporters camped outside the apartment. I had no idea how far this thing was going to spread.
"No matter what happens, don't ever open the door for strangers."
I'd drilled into my little sister that she was never to open the door for anyone unfamiliar.
"I knowww. Eunbi's a good listener, oppa."
My sister answered with her hands on her hips and her belly pushed out, striking a pose of supreme confidence.
I gave her head a light pat.
In any case, news of my conflict with the football club had reached my parents as well. When they heard the full story, they were heartbroken.
...No excuses.
All sorts of justifications flitted through my head, but now was the time to apologize to them, not to explain.
"Our sweet little Jae-rim... I can't imagine how much it hurt to hear people say such terrible things about you."
But before the word "sorry" could even leave my mouth, my mother stepped forward and quietly pulled me into her arms.
...Am I... sweet?
For a moment I had absolutely no idea what she meant, but I couldn't bring myself to detonate the mood, so I let it slide.
The atmosphere had grown a touch awkward. In my past lives, I would have agonized forever over what to say in a moment like this—but not anymore.
Because we had the mood-maker of our family.
"Me too! Me too! Hug me too!"
The revelation that the club had disciplined Joo Jae-rim in order to cover up the abuse taking place on Seoul CF's youth team leaked out to the whole world.
The club had initially cried fake news, but once the football association launched its investigation shortly after, the full story came to light. The club tried to disperse the heat by pushing out reports of Jae-rim's "problematic statements," but—
Then it emerged that the parents of the perpetrators had been posting attacks on Joo Jae-rim in an online fan café all along. The moment those posts went public, public opinion flipped all over again.
And when news broke that a fire had broken out in a certain not-so-friendly neighbor's backyard, people naturally came running to watch with delight.
While the entire nation buzzed with news of Joo Jae-rim—
"Eunbi's going to Europe too!"
Joo Jae-rim's family boarded a plane bound for Spain.
Our family had decided to emigrate to Spain. It had been my parents' firm insistence after they heard what happened at school.
Because of that clickbait headline, my parents had assumed I myself had been abused and panicked. I told them the boys had never laid a hand on me directly, but the moment they confirmed that real abuse had occurred within the club I belonged to, they flat-out forbade me from playing club football in Korea.
And so they decided on Europe.
"Unni! Eunbi's going to Europe!"
"Oh, is that right? I hope it's a wonderful trip for you."
My heart wasn't entirely in it—my sister would be suffering in a place where she couldn't speak a word of the language, all because of me. Part of me wished I could just cross over to Spain alone, but FIFA's regulations barring international youth transfers meant I had no choice but to go with my parents.
"We will see you comfortably to Madrid. Thank you very much."
In any case, our destination was Valencia.
Once things in Korea had more or less settled down, Cristiano Ronaldo had proudly slapped down an invoice.
Seriously, why does this bastard have to make everything harder instead of helping? Really?
That said, Valencia hadn't become our destination purely because of Ronaldo's invoice. At first I'd genuinely weighed England too.
The Arsenal scout who'd thought so highly of me four years ago had worked the connection hard on my behalf. And my heart did lean toward Arsenal over Valencia for a while—joining Arsenal's academy and filling the home grounds of the Premier League would have paid dividends in all sorts of ways.
The problem was that Arsenal's manager demanded I take a trial.
...He's watched every second of my footage, and he still wants a trial.
For me, this was a matter of pride in my own ability. Having seen everything I could do and then asking me to audition stung my ego more than a little.
Which meant that, naturally, my choice fell on Valencia—the one club that hadn't demanded a trial. It wasn't just Arsenal; the other clubs too, perhaps unnerved by the gap in my record, had all insisted on trials.
Well. Even setting the trial question aside, Valencia did offer the best conditions overall.
Presumably because its owner, Cristiano Ronaldo, had taken personal care of the matter.
"I remember mocking Ronaldo for moving to Saudi Arabia back when I was a kid—called it his Arabian Nights..."
Watching Cristiano Ronaldo so enthusiastically assist our family's emigration, my father seemed to be feeling any number of emotions.
Europe was currently ablaze with talk of me. My image on the continent had settled into that of the Baby Jesus—a boy blessed with innate genius who drew envy and jealousy from those around him and suffered persecution for it.
The nickname, for the record, stemmed from the revelation that the name "Jae-rim" meant the Second Coming. He'd already established his image as a football prodigy through the broadcast thanks to his youth and dazzling talent, and then the news media had introduced him as a talent on the level of Lionel Messi himself.
Most people swallowed the news wholesale. Mix ten percent of a lie into ninety percent of the truth, and suddenly everyone believes! For the record, from where I stood, it was one hundred percent truth.
I prided myself on having the talent to surpass Lionel Messi.
The crucial point, of course, was that I hadn't actually shown anyone anything yet. And yet, strangely enough, nobody pushed back—people simply accepted the "Messi-level talent" framing as given.
I found myself thinking of my past lives. The memories flashed by: the sheer berserk effort I'd poured out just to stand on the same line as Messi.
So it was something they'd just hand over this easily?
I was human too, and I couldn't help feeling a little hollow about it. All those years of toil spent chasing a single title—and in the end, one appearance on a TV show had gotten me there with a single click.
So on the plane, I was browsing the sentiment on a community forum mostly used by Westerners.
"Oppa. Oppa."
My sister tugged at my arm.
"What?"
"I'm boooored!"
Apparently she couldn't endure the tedium of a long-haul flight.
"Bear with it. We're almost there."
"Oppa, can't you put on NewTube on your phone?"
"...Fine. Here."
Refusing would only earn me an endless whining session, so I quietly handed over my smartphone. While my sister watched kids' NewTube, the plane touched down at Madrid Airport in Spain before I knew it.
"WaaaAAH—!"
When we arrived at Madrid Airport, far more people were waiting than I'd expected.
What is all this...
The sea of people packing the airport caught me a bit off guard. It wasn't hard to figure out they were my fans—they were clutching merchandise bearing my face from the Fly World Class 11 broadcast days.
I'd known the show had been a hit overseas, but I'd never imagined it had been this popular.
As I stood flustered by the crowd filling the airport, a reporter stepped forward.
"Do you have any intention of naturalizing to Spain?"
Judging by the reporter's tone, he seemed convinced I'd be leaving Korea for good.
"......"
In that sliver of a moment, an immense number of thoughts flashed past.
I'd been sure this was going to be a breather episode, but the moment a chance to clear the mission actually appeared, greed began to stir. At this point, legal naturalization might well be within my reach. Maybe, just maybe, I could end the curse of regression within this very lifetime.
But I decided to hold to the principles I'd sworn to myself before regressing. This lifetime, I would try choosing the things I had never once chosen before.
And above all, I didn't want to watch my family get hurt because of me.
I didn't even know whether the timeline continued after my regression. For me, the day a footballer retires is the end of life itself. So if my existence were to vanish one day, I hoped the family I left behind would at least have been a little happy.
"I still love my homeland and its culture. If even a single Korean wants to see me play for the national team, then I will play for the country where I was born. If I played for Spain, I could certainly lift the World Cup trophy—but it would mean nothing. I want to bring my homeland its first-ever World Cup trophy. And by lifting the World Cup trophy for the first time ever on a continent outside South America and Europe, I want to be remembered as the greatest footballer the world has ever known—greater than Lionel Messi."
Even as I spoke of my goal, a sliver of worry gnawed at me. I thought people might laugh me off for setting my sights on something so absurdly grandiose.
Clap, clap—
But what greeted me wasn't mockery. It was applause.
Not a single person there dismissed my goal. On the contrary, they clapped and cheered my dream on.
Perhaps...
Perhaps I had been so consumed by the mission of surpassing Messi that I had forgotten what sport was for in the first place.
After that day's interview at Madrid Airport, the snowball toward mission completion began to roll, slowly but surely.
Two days later, I traveled to Valencia. It was to finalize my youth contract.
But the moment we arrived at the club house, Valencia's officials suddenly changed their tune.
"Well, ahem... it has been four years, after all, so you'll need to take a trial, I'm afraid."
I turned my head at this sudden about-face—and there, legs crossed with a sulky expression on his face, sat Cristiano Ronaldo.
...You again?
It was obvious. This bastard was sulking because I hadn't mentioned him in my airport interview.
And so, on that day.
In exchange for skipping the trial, a clause was carved into my contract: henceforth, whenever I mentioned Lionel Messi, I would absolutely must—no, would always—mention Ronaldo in the same breath.
...Why is he single-handedly keeping a dead rivalry on life support?