You Should Have Respected Me
Cristiano Ronaldo could have watched the match against Barcelona from the VIP lounge.
Today, however, he chose to watch it in the away section, alongside the Valencia fans.
For a match this important, the electric atmosphere of being there in person was everything.
“SIUUUUUUUU—!”
When Joo Jaerim's first goal went in, Ronaldo unleashed his celebration straight at the Barcelona fans.
After all, the recipients were the arrogant Barcelona supporters who had provoked him before kickoff by chanting Lionel Messi's name right to his face.
Ronaldo was a man of 'magnanimous grace'—the kind who remembered every last one of these petty slights and repaid them in full.
“Cristiano! The greatest owner in Valencia history, the man who brought us Jaerim!”
And a little later, when Joo Jaerim bagged his brace, the applause and admiring eyes of the Valencia fans all turned toward Ronaldo.
I am Valencia.
Cristiano Ronaldo basked in the crowd's attention with deep satisfaction.
The respect and attention that came with being an owner was a slightly different flavor from what he'd received as a player—but honestly, as long as he was getting attention and respect at all, Ronaldo was content.
“Messi! Messi! Messi!”
“Cristiano, you always come up short against Messi!”
“Even that brat Jaerim can't touch Messi!”
When Valencia conceded the equalizer, the Barcelona fans' taunting did make his blood boil.
But before the final whistle, the situation flipped once again.
“Yeaaaaah!!!!!”
His 'disciple' Joo Jaerim had just put the insolent Barcelona in their place!
“¡O Jaerimi, Dios de Fútbol!”
The Valencia fans parodied a Lionel Messi chant, twisting it into mockery.
And Ronaldo held up his fingers to show Joo Jaerim's age.
It was a message for the Barcelona fans who had compared Jaerim's talent to Messi's: remember how old this kid actually is.
Watching the Barcelona supporters tremble with rage, Ronaldo beamed and marveled to himself.
Not bad at all, Jaerim.
A hat-trick against Barcelona—a historic feat even Cristiano Ronaldo had never managed.
That a fourteen-year-old kid had pulled it off was something he could barely believe even with his own two eyes.
“Cris! Re-sign Jaerim!”
The Valencia fans begged their owner to keep hold of the boy.
And Cristiano Ronaldo declared with firm resolve before them all:
The Valencia fans' applause thundered through the stands, and for Cristiano Ronaldo, it was a truly perfect day.
Right up until—
“¡Vamos! Jaerim's doing a celebration!!”
Joo Jaerim began performing Lionel Messi's celebration.
That day, Cristiano Ronaldo could not help but remember.
“No······.”
The terror of Lionel Messi silencing the entire Santiago Bernabéu with a shirt-lift celebration······
The humiliation of having the Ballon d'Or snatched away by his own teammate—
— The 2018 Ballon d'Or winner is··· congratulations! Luka Modrić!
—And the despair of the day Lionel Messi won the World Cup and claimed his eighth Ballon d'Or!
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO—!”
And now, on top of everything, even his disciple's(?) first celebration had been stolen by Messi. Cristiano Ronaldo's scream echoed through Camp Nou.
The moment I finished Lionel Messi's shirt ceremony, boos rained down from the Barcelona fans.
Well, fair enough.
This was, in its own way, a provocation.
“You're not Jaerim.”
After I buried the hat-trick and broke out the ceremony, one of their players actually started questioning whether I was really me.
Then again—was my brain running a little low on oxygen? That last play had been a bit different from my usual self.
“The Jaerim I know would never drop back into the defensive zone.”
Oh. So that's what this was about.
I didn't answer them.
Not out of any deliberate coldness—I simply didn't have the breath to spare.
“Jaerim, brilliant goal.”
Pat, pat—
Rafael Silva came over grinning and slapped me on the back, and I managed to squeeze out a reply.
“···Stop hitting my back. I'm gonna throw up.”
My growth spurt wasn't finished yet, which meant my stamina hadn't fully caught up either.
Going the full ninety minutes was still beyond my physical limits.
And considering I'd dribbled nearly eighty meters on that final run, I'd definitely overdone it a little.
Hmm······. Have I really been running that little lately?
The twenty-minute cap on my minutes back in the Juvenil days must have taken more of a toll than I thought.
Whew······.
I walked slowly toward the halfway line, steadying my breathing.
The Barcelona players' eyes—swirling with a dozen tangled emotions—turned toward me.
Well, I've certainly made a first impression.
In a past life, I probably would have settled for two goals.
A brace against the league leaders was already more than impressive enough.
Besides, I had a goal that towered above all that: surpassing Lionel Messi.
And to reach it, I couldn't afford to carelessly dump everything I had into a single match.
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo both played until they were nearly forty.
If I was going to play until forty, I had twenty-six more years ahead of me from today.
Those bastards really did play forever······.
That was exactly why I never flashy-dribbled during matches.
Flashy skills might land a thunderous highlight reel moment, but in the end they eat away at your career.
For someone like me, who had to prove 'consistency' for twenty-six straight years, flashiness was poison.
Plus, body feints alone were always more than enough.
Maybe it was a kind of compulsion, honestly.
It was an extremely long time ago, but there'd been a life where I sprinted out of the gates at an overwhelming pace, then tore my meniscus—after which my evaluation crumbled and the mission failed.
That one wrecked me, mentally. Bad.
I think I burned through an entire three regressions on that alone.
Losing my mind was one thing, but climbing back out of that pit took ages.
“Jaerim, great work out there. Trust your teammates and get some rest.”
“······That's exactly what worries me, though.”
Anyway.
I scored the hat-trick and was subbed off almost immediately.
Ever since I'd provoked Barcelona with Messi's celebration, the atmosphere in the stadium had turned murderous in an instant.
“Puta madre, if we concede here I won't be able to show my face in the neighborhood! Defend like your lives depend on it!!”
Barcelona threw everything forward in a furious bid for the equalizer.
But Valencia held together as one and protected the lead.
The match ended in a Valencia victory.
That evening.
The moment I got back to Valencia, I was taken straight to the medical center for an examination.
“Jaerim, is anything bothering you?”
“My knee feels a little off.”
The moment I told the team doctor after the match that I felt slightly off, the medical team went into emergency mode and got me examined right away.
“······First time I've ever seen the entire medical staff mobilized like this.”
My Valencia teammates made bewildered faces at the unprecedented sight, but for someone who'd spent his entire life as a super-elite prospect, this was simply business as usual.
I went through the full workup without much feeling either way.
“Nothing wrong apart from some mild muscle fatigue. A massage should sort it out.”
······?
What? That couldn't be right.
Whenever I forced my senses past their limits, the recoil always came due—without fail.
“······Could you run the tests again?”
I found it so hard to believe that I asked for a re-examination.
“Sí, of course.”
The results came back identical.
“The full workup came back clean?”
“Yes, sir. Slightly elevated muscle fatigue, but nothing else. Not a single abnormality, they say.”
Only after the medical team reported that everything was clear did Manager Julián Cortés Navarro finally let out a sigh of relief.
“Thank goodness.”
This was the player who had just hit a hat-trick, away from home, against that Barcelona.
There was no one left in the world who could dismiss Joo Jaerim as a mere prospect anymore.
Valencia had already been planning to rebuild the squad around Jaerim next season anyway.
But with the kid putting on dominant performances against first-division opposition, there was no longer any reason to delay.
If Jaerim had gotten injured right now, all of those plans would have gone up in smoke······.
Thankfully, the full examination had found nothing wrong.
Valencia could breathe easy and press on with restructuring the roster around Joo Jaerim.
I knew the talent was exceptional, but I never dreamed he'd hit a hat-trick against Barcelona······.
Manager Julián Cortés Navarro replayed the Barcelona match in his mind.
The shock Jaerim had delivered still lingered in his chest.
Of course, for every shock Jaerim had handed him, there was an equal measure of worry.
That last tackle······. Genuinely dangerous.
Jaerim had dodged it, but if that challenge had connected, it would have meant a serious injury.
That was precisely why he'd pulled Jaerim straight to the bench right after the hat-trick.
Well, the kid did look gassed, too. Speaking of which, we really need to invest more in the medical center facilities.
Manager Julián immediately requested the medical center's expansion from the owner—and succeeded in getting Cristiano Ronaldo's ready approval.
There was just one thing the manager couldn't wrap his head around.
······Why is the owner in a bad mood again?
Valencia had just beaten Barcelona, and yet the owner looked utterly miserable.
And what on earth is he writing so intently over there······?
While South Korea erupted in cheers, Europe—outside of Spain—stayed relatively calm.
The vast majority of European football fans simply didn't pay much attention to other countries' leagues.
Their own domestic leagues were competitive enough on their own.
This tendency was strongest among fans of nations with the Premier League, La Liga, the Bundesliga, Serie A, and Ligue 1.
It was the same as how Korean fans of AOS games rarely watched Chinese tournaments—the perception that Korea was the best at AOS games was deeply ingrained in nearly everyone.
And so, most of them only took an interest in another club's player after facing off in the Champions League.
If there was any exception to the matches they followed—anything beyond the Champions League—it would be El Clásico, the world-famous derby.
Even fans who never watched full matches found the news that FC Barcelona had lost to a hat-trick from a fourteen-year-old boy more than enough to seize their attention.
Of course, it was precisely because the story was that hard to believe that plenty of skeptical comments flooded in.
But a little while later, when Valencia released the highlight video—
Had the match against Barcelona really been that shocking?
Articles poured out of the media beyond counting.
“Jaerim!! You're our hero!!”
“What did I tell you? Any club I play for is the best in the world.”
I didn't pay much attention to the public reaction.
I'd simply lived far too long to get worked up over things like this.
Valencia had taken the win away at Barcelona and clinched a Europa League spot.
Falling short of the Champions League stung a little, but honestly, the Europa League wasn't bad at all.
After all, in this particular life, this would probably be the first and last time I played in the Europa League.
It's my team, though. We should at least be making the Champions League.
Meanwhile, Barcelona's premature victory celebration—declared on the assumption they'd clinch the title by beating us—had become a legendary turd, mercilessly mocked across the internet.
La Liga fans (of Real Madrid and Valencia) posted photos of my celebration alongside the caption 'Stay Humble.', mocking the once-arrogant Barcelona.
Well, Barcelona had been thoroughly humiliated by the loss to Valencia.
But at the end of the day, the fact that they'd win this season's La Liga hadn't changed.
They still held a comfortable points gap over second-place Real Madrid.
Come to think of it, though—I feel like I'm forgetting something······. What was it?
And a few days later.
“You've got mail.”
And I came face to face with the thing I'd forgotten.
You should have respected me······.