Go Drink Your Mom's Milk, Kid
The moment Joo Jae-rim stepped onto the pitch as a substitute, every Arsenal U-19 player turned to stare at him.
"That's him? That's the kid we heard about?"
For all the notoriety(?) currently spreading through European football, Joo Jae-rim's appearance was, if anything, remarkably ordinary.
Which made sense — in the rumors, the Joo Jae-rim everyone described was a demon incarnate.
...Someone said this kid had horns growing out of his head? He looks like any normal kid to me.
The only thing worth noting was how young he looked.
"He looks really young, doesn't he?"
"He is young. Apparently he's twelve."
To them, Joo Jae-rim looked no different from any ordinary Asian boy.
Incidentally, Valencia's youth players had once been fooled(?) by that deceptively young face too — in his early matches, they'd played cautiously, careful not to let him get hurt, and only after being thoroughly broken did they realize that Joo Jae-rim was a devil in sheep's clothing.
But the English gentlemen — famous for their chivalry though they were — had absolutely no culture of going easy on children.
"Shouldn't you go back and finish nursing on your mom's milk, you little runt?"
Noel Lennon, English gentleman, pressed his right hand to his chest and stared down at Joo Jae-rim's baby-faced features, attempting his trash talk.
I walked slowly across the grass, taking the measure of Arsenal's youth players.
It felt a bit rude to say, but Arsenal's youth team was, despite the club's prestige, on the weak side.
Chelsea and Manchester City had been aggressively poaching England's young talents with sheer capital, and the drain showed.
Even so, the weight of the Arsenal name had kept the academy producing its fair share of good players.
The Goliath standing right in front of me was one of them.
...Now, what was this kid's name again?
It had been quite a while, but a vague memory surfaced of playing alongside him once, on the same team.
He'd seemed like a decent player, as I recalled...
Hm...
...I couldn't remember his name.
Apparently he hadn't been good enough for me to bother remembering it.
Well, it's not like the name matters.
What mattered was that this insolent little brat had just tried to trash-talk me.
"Shouldn't you go back and finish nursing on your mom's milk, you little runt?"
Unfortunately for him, football — unlike basketball — is not a sport decided by height, and this brat apparently hadn't gotten the memo yet.
If I'd been a little younger, I might have taught him a proper lesson. But unfortunately, I've lived far too long to get worked up over a cheap jab.
I forgot I'd even been provoked and played the match exactly the way I always did.
The fact that our attacks skewed unusually toward the right flank was pure coincidence.
Meanwhile, at that very moment, Joo Sang-hyun tilted his head as he studied his son's expression.
Huh? Jae-rim's angry?
Joo Jae-rim wasn't one to wear his feelings on his sleeve, but in his father's eyes, the shifts in his son's emotions were surprisingly legible.
Years of effort — long hours spent alongside his wife — had gone into learning to read a boy who almost never expressed anything at all.
And through those practiced eyes, the verdict was clear.
Joo Jae-rim was angry right now. Quite angry, in fact.
I received the ball from some nameless youth player.
"Jaerimi!"
Apparently the pronunciation of "Jae-rim" was too much for some of the Valencia players, so they'd taken to calling me "Jaerimi" instead.
I'd told them to just call me by my surname, "Joo," but these guys — nineteen years old, mind you — had zero interest in listening to another human being.
Unbelievable. These golden brats are impossible to talk to.
While I was silently grumbling, the Goliath who'd mocked my height cut off my path.
Facing him, I was honestly rather disappointed.
He's full of holes.
All that mouth, and he was this sloppy.
"Listen here, pipsqueak, I got careless earlier—"
He'd already been nutmegged half a dozen times and still wanted to run his mouth, so instead of answering, I rolled the ball between his legs.
The name of the technique: the nutmeg.
In Korea, we call it alkkagi.
Not that it's anything special — you just kick the ball through your opponent's legs and go past them.
"Fuck!"
The Goliath hastily clamped his legs together and went down hard on the turf.
Maybe it's the lack of experience, but his decision-making is poor too.
In that moment, snapping the play dead with a deliberate foul — grabbing the shirt instead of clamping shut — would have been the smarter choice.
Then again... he's only human. When the ball flashes between your legs, your legs are going to clamp. Can't be helped.
Still, his nutmeg reaction is delicious.
Perhaps because the kid was over 190 centimeters of towering frame, the visual effect was simply spectacular.
The moment the Goliath hit the ground, the roar from the stands grew even louder.
Be that as it may — in the blink of an eye I was near the penalty box, and every Arsenal player's eyes locked onto me.
The defender who stepped in front of me even began wearing an impressively grim expression.
"I am ready. Come at me!"
Strangely anime of him.
Word was that Europe had no shortage of hardcore weebs mainlining Japanese manga these days — apparently this was the result.
What is wrong with you.
Unfortunately for him, I felt no obligation to play along with such childish theatrics.
Tap—
My choice was a pass.
If you insisted I dribble through, sure, I could.
But I had no interest in waltzing straight into a trap that obvious.
Besides — if the team had been losing, maybe. But why would I force anything when we were already winning?
And so.
Caught completely off guard by the unexpected pass, Arsenal's defensive line failed to react in time.
"Jae—"
The ball threaded perfectly to the winger slicing into the penalty box from the far side.
"Whoaht—!"
The winger did nothing more than apply his foot to the pass arriving at his weak foot, and the goal burst open.
It was, for all practical purposes, the footballing equivalent of a spoon lifted to your lips — a perfect pass, served straight to the mouth.
Had he missed that one, he'd have been quietly packing his bags out of Valencia's youth squad.
"Vamos—!"
I watched him celebrate the goal, then drifted slowly back toward the halfway line — whereupon he came sprinting desperately after me, babbling.
"Jaerimi! How did you know I'd make that run? Can you see it? I swear, the exact moment I was about to call for you, the ball just arrived right in front of me! Whoa! Are you seeing this? Goosebumps! Nobody will ever know how electrifying that felt!"
I clamped a hand over the praising boy's mouth.
And as his eyes darted every which way in bewilderment at my sudden action, I explained why I'd shut him up.
"You're spraying spit."
Even after the additional goal, Valencia kept hammering Arsenal relentlessly.
I roamed the front line at a leisurely stroll, stabbing in killer passes whenever the moment presented itself.
Unlike Barcelona's Apollo-haired coach, who had lectured me nonstop, nobody here had a single word to say about my playing style.
If anything, Valencia's coaches seemed almost intimidated to offer me coaching at all.
...Now this is how it should be.
On the football pitch, as a rule, the one who plays football best should be king.
The moment I took the ball near the penalty box, the Goliath came charging in again.
His face was flushed crimson.
Getting nutmegged moments ago had apparently stung his pride.
Oh, is that so? Then let me do it to you one more time.
The instant I feinted a dribble to the right, his legs spread open.
I fired a shot straight through the gap between them.
From the goalkeeper's perspective, it must have felt like the ball had suddenly burst out from between a blocker's legs, vision completely obscured.
Naturally, Arsenal's keeper didn't so much as flinch.
Not that it would've mattered if he had.
The ball was headed for the bottom-left corner, well beyond any keeper's reach.
And so.
The shot fired through the Goliath's very own legs ripped into the back of Arsenal's net.
"Whoa..."
Silence fell over the stadium.
Joo Sang-hyun swallowed dryly.
At some point he'd forgotten he was even supposed to be filming, absorbed entirely in the match itself.
...I hope I got that on camera?
Even so, some instinct kept the veteran camera director from missing a single frame of Joo Jae-rim's play.
Decades of experience made that possible.
Wow — that dribbling is insane.
Having confirmed the footage was captured properly, Joo Sang-hyun gazed at his son's play in open-mouthed wonder.
...At that level, was I actually talented at football too?
Back when Joo Jae-rim had been busy massacring youth leagues with his absurd talent, he'd indulged in the occasional pipe dream of his own.
But after trying to imitate a Marseille turn in the front yard, stepping on the ball, and falling flat on his face... he'd accepted that football talent simply wasn't in his blood.
"Ah, missed it."
Joo Sang-hyun groaned.
He'd just fumbled a shot of his son's pass — because Joo Jae-rim's feint had fooled even the man behind the camera.
And Joo Jae-rim's pass, once again, ended in a goal.
The score was 5-0.
The match was over.
Noel Lennon glared at Joo Jae-rim.
That little bastard...
Joo Jae-rim, sauntering around the front line without a care in the world, kept getting under his skin.
The moment he let his focus slip, even for an instant—
Tap—
"Damn it!"
—this was exactly what happened.
That monster reacted like a ghost the instant Noel's concentration wavered, punishing him without fail.
...What even IS this kid?
Whenever Noel charged in, the boy never forced the issue — he simply slipped a pass to a teammate instead.
"Tch. Plays like a little girl."
The trash talk didn't land at all.
Quite the opposite — the pipsqueak would nutmeg him the moment Noel opened his mouth, then pile on the mockery.
"Good grief, how many eggs are you planning to lay today? What are you, a sunfish?"
A deep helplessness surged up in Noel Lennon's chest — the crushing certainty that nothing he did could stop Joo Jae-rim.
And in that moment, Noel Lennon's gaze fell upon Joo Jae-rim's legs.
...He had the kind of thought a footballer must never, ever have.
THWACK—
He slapped his own cheek, hard.
At Noel Lennon's sudden self-inflicted blow, the stadium froze, as if time itself had stopped.
Then, right on cue, the final whistle blew.
"...Let's do this again someday, runt... no — Joo Jae-rim."
Noel Lennon looked at Joo Jae-rim and offered his farewell.
Witnessing it at point-blank range, Joo Jae-rim's assessment was refreshingly simple.
"...Is this guy insane?"
Silence hung among Valencia CF's coaching staff as the youth league results came in.
Joo Jae-rim's record from his substitute appearance in this youth league match: one goal, three assists.
But the attacking output wasn't the remarkable part—
What stunned them was that, under the club-mandated playing-time restriction placed on him, Joo Jae-rim had produced it all in barely twenty minutes of football.
He was simply operating on a different level.
That was the shared verdict of every Valencia coach who watched him.
"..."
Despite a staggering seven-year age gap, Joo Jae-rim had utterly dominated the opposition.
Back when Valencia's youth staff had fast-tracked him into Juvenil A, they'd all assumed he would struggle at the Juvenil level.
No matter how good your technique is, if the physicality outmatches you, it's a hard road.
But Joo Jae-rim possessed a shrewd intelligence — the ability to reshape his entire playing style to fit whoever stood across from him.
Especially in the attacking midfield role, where his killer passes sliced defenses apart, he was lethal.
Can I really be the one to develop him properly?
With every new report of Joo Jae-rim's exploits, the burden pressing on Valencia CF's youth directors only grew heavier.
Several of the youth coaches even felt uneasy about offering him advice at all.
Am I committing a sin against the football world right now?
They were terrified that Joo Jae-rim might somehow be led astray by their guidance.
...Besides, he seems to understand our training sessions better than we do.
Truth be told, Joo Jae-rim wouldn't have accepted their advice in the first place.
His experience had long since surpassed anything theirs could offer.
"What Jae-rim needs is not that kind of busywork."
While Valencia's coaches sat crushed under the weight of their own inadequacy, Cristiano Ronaldo stepped forward.
"Then what does Jae-rim need?"
The coaches turned worried eyes on Cristiano Ronaldo.
Because Cristiano Ronaldo had never bothered to obtain a professional coaching license!
"A mentor. Someone capable of understanding a great talent."
But at Ronaldo's answer, the coaches found themselves nodding along in spite of themselves.
"Shall we call Messi, then?"
"You're Fired."
Having secured the coaches' approval, Cristiano Ronaldo went to Joo Jae-rim and proposed that he, himself, become the boy's mentor.
"I, the owner of five Ballon d'Ors, shall be your mentor!"
"I'll pass."
And was flatly rejected by Joo Jae-rim.
From that day forward, Cristiano Ronaldo began showing up at Joo Jae-rim's house every single day.
Thus began his three-visits-and-counting campaign to win the boy over as his mentor.