Normalization (2)
If you asked fans who follow the K-League which team ruled the 2010s, every last one of them would give you the same answer.
Jeonbuk Future Motors.
Jeonbuk Keratops had spent years getting thrashings from the league’s automatic three-point dispensers. The moment Future Motors became majority shareholder in 1997, everything changed. In 2005 they appointed Choi Kang-hoe, a manager with a ferocious attacking philosophy. By 2006 they had already lifted the ACL—the AFC Champions League—trophy.
With the foundation properly laid, Jeonbuk’s dynasty rose steadily to the surface. In 2008 they signed the big-name Jo Jae-jun; in 2009 they added Lee Dong-gun and Eninho, further fertilizing the soil. That same year they claimed their first-ever K-League title and announced the start of the dynasty.
Of course, there had been ugly moments—Seoul fans threatened with rocks, a Jeonbuk scout exposed for bribing a referee—that dragged the club’s reputation through the mud. Still, no one could deny that Jeonbuk of that era was the most terrifying side in the K-League.
Those really were the good days. We repaid the fans with brilliant performances and walked away with results that satisfied everyone. People joked that the K-League of that time was just twenty-two guys running around a pitch until the ones in green finally won.
But every golden age is followed by decline. Ask those same fans which team began to fall apart through the 2020s and only now, in 2029, was finally firing the first flares of revival, and they would give you exactly the same name.
Jeonbuk Future Motors… that glittering era is gone without a trace…
A shadow settled over the face of Sun Ki-baek, a lifelong Jeonbuk supporter who had just been appointed the club’s new manager this season.
He had never been a professional player, yet his pure passion for the game drove him to Spain. There he studied tactics and coached, bouncing from club to club until he proved himself. Most recently he had taken interim charge of Spanish second-division side CD Castellón and whipped up a storm that drew national attention. For a thirty-two-year-old who had come from the footballing backwater of Asia, the résumé was dazzling.
Behind it, however, lay years soaked in blood and sweat. Street-level racism, nights spent sleepless trying to force an unfamiliar language into his skull—those years still refused to be romanticized. The only reason he had endured them was one simple memory.
The Jeonbuk I saw at Jeonju Castle holding my father’s hand… that wasn’t the Jeonbuk I knew.
He had witnessed the glory days with his own eyes. He wanted to raise that dynasty again with his own hands.
After the Castellón surge, big Spanish clubs had offered him coaching roles; even the cash-strapped Castellón themselves offered the permanent manager’s job. Sun Ki-baek ignored every invitation. He had eyes only for the dream he had carried since childhood, and he chose Jeonbuk this season.
He arrived full of hope and threw himself into preparations for the opening match. Yet the only things that left his mouth were sighs and raw curses.
“Haa… fuck.”
Tap, tap, tap.
He stared at the squad list and match data on his desk, crushing his lower lip between his teeth. His fingers hammered the keyboard faster.
What the hell was the previous manager trying to do with this team? He left the rebuild in absolute shambles…
The drop in individual quality was bad enough, but the real problem was the collapse of discipline.
Discipline.
Modern football fans treated the word like something that only came out of the mouths of dinosaur managers. Even so, this was beyond the pale.
These absolute bastards lose a match and immediately bolt to a club? Against Suwon, no less? And the so-called veterans?
The veterans who were supposed to hold the team together were already underperforming. Watching them pull stunts like this made his blood boil. And the opponent had been Suwon—not Suwon United, but Suwon Ohseong. The match even had its own name, the Gong-seong Match, a proper named rivalry that demanded the same all-out effort as games against Seoul or Ulsan.
After getting dismantled in a derby like that, they should have been training in a rage at the clubhouse. Instead they hit the clubs, got hammered, and came back reeking of booze.
“They should be drowning in shame, yet they told the director they didn’t do a thing—just drank. Bullshit. It’s a reservation-only place called Orgasm and they claim nothing happened? Did they think I wouldn’t find out? Fucking animals.”
“G-gaffer… please calm down. The director is taking this seriously too. He said he’d accept a heavy sanction.”
“Sanction…”
Beside him, head coach Oh Hyun-ook tried to soothe him. Sun Ki-baek dropped his head and let out a bitter laugh.
Sanction? Of course there would be sanctions. They already weren’t earning their wages, and now they had blown holes in the team’s discipline.
What made him angrier was the knowledge that even the harshest ban wouldn’t fix the situation.
Leaving the resting players behind after the practice match, he turned to Oh Hyun-ook.
“Three of them involved in this mess. Both full-backs and the holding midfielder, right?”
“Yes. The club is thinking three-match bans and a public apology to the supporters after the next game.”
“Not enough. If they were the type to learn from that, they never would have done it in the first place.”
These were men convinced the team couldn’t function without them. A suspension would feel like a vacation.
In that case he would have to use the manager’s authority to create additional pressure.
I can’t unilaterally raise the ban level. But I can simply say they don’t fit my plan and leave them on the bench.
Squad selection was one of the manager’s powers. Time to use it.
Sun Ki-baek looked at his restless coach and, at the same time, pictured a certain player he had watched on the training ground—the kid who single-handedly shackled the opposition and then flipped the entire game with sheer audacity.
“Hyun-ook. Number 24, Baek Yi-an. Give me his youth stats again.”
“S-stats?”
“Yeah. And tell me about his physical profile.”
“Understood. Name: Baek Yi-an, born 2011, currently eighteen. Height 191 cm, weight 91 kg. Outstanding performer in the K-League Junior League. Last season he started thirty-four matches, came off the bench twice, for a total of 2,921 minutes. Four goals, six assists. Averaged fifty pass attempts with forty-three completed—roughly eighty-five percent completion.”
“Sounds like a core player already. What about tackles and interceptions?”
“Both excellent. Top twenty-three percent in the league for each. Recoveries are even better—top five percent. Physically he’s two-footed and hits a top speed of thirty-eight kilometers per hour, so almost no one outruns him. Even allowing for youth-league competition, those numbers would rank near the top of the senior K-League.”
“Any weaknesses?”
“Well… hot-tempered, mentally fragile. Once he collapses, his vision narrows and the mistakes snowball. But that’s something coaching can fix.”
Sun Ki-baek slowly read through the file Oh Hyun-ook handed him. Even at youth level the talent was almost unbelievable. The personality issues were a slight concern, but—
Compared to the veterans who refuse to own their mistakes and just blame the team…
“From what I saw, his mentality looks fine. So does his vision. He read the tactics instantly and shut everything down perfectly.”
Masterful tempo control, panoramic vision—those were gifts no amount of experience could buy. Pure talent, the kind only heaven handed out, and Baek Yi-an had it.
Far better resource than the overpaid veterans who weren’t delivering. If he could translate his youth performances onto the senior stage, he wouldn’t just protect the back line; he could become the launchpad for counter-attacks and the team’s central axis.
What better way to jolt the complacent veterans than the fear of losing their places to a kid like this?
“Good.”
He could completely legal wreck the bastards he hated. The corner of Sun Ki-baek’s mouth curled upward of its own accord.
“Gaffer? You’re not seriously—? Because of the U-22 rule we might have to think about it, but we already decided to promote both full-backs. If you throw Yi-an into the next match as well—”
“Hyun-ook, ever since Castellón you’ve always known exactly what I’m thinking. That’s why I like working with you. No need to say things twice.”
“G-gaffer! No, hyung, for fuck’s sake! Using three U-22 players is already insane! Every other team is panicking just trying to fill the minimum—”
“Sorry, want something even more shocking?”
“What now? This is actually terrifying—give me a second to prepare myself… wait, don’t tell me three isn’t the end—”
“Correct. I’m thinking of using four, including the poacher. So dig up everything on Han Gang-rok, Han Gyeong-rok, Baek Yi-an, and Yoon Seung-hwan and bring it to my office today. Damn, autumn disappeared and now spring’s vanishing too? This sunlight is ridiculous.”
While I was busy cleaning up the messes Baek Yi-an had left behind, one question kept circling my head: what the hell kind of guy had this body been?
He threw absolute tantrums over nothing.
The moment his best-coordinated teammate from the youth days started getting recognition, he tried to take him out at the ankles. When his childhood friend gathered data and coached him purely so he wouldn’t get injured, he screamed obscenities at her and got cut off for good. And the reason for all that twisted behavior? Simple jealousy. Unbelievable.
“Well, I’ve cleaned it up now, so it shouldn’t matter anymore.”
“Huh? Cleaned what up? Baek Yi-an, did you screw something up again?”
I had been muttering to myself on the team bus. Apparently loud enough for Han Gang-rok beside me to hear.
“Do I look like you? Running around causing disasters every other day? It’s nothing, so sit still.”
“Come on, man. You looked tense. I was just trying to lighten the mood. Why so sensitive?”
He raised his voice with shameless nonchalance. I couldn’t help a short laugh.
Looking at him, the kid was something else. A complete rookie who had been playing youth football until recently, about to step onto the pitch in a competition as big as the ACL, and not a single sign of nerves. Even past-life me hadn’t been that smooth; my face used to lock up for days before a Champions League night.
Yeah, this one’s special.
I looked at him with a mixture of admiration and amusement. Han Gang-rok tilted his head, then scowled as if he thought I was mocking him.
“Hey. Do me a favor and stop looking at me with those creepy gay eyes. Last night was already rough enough because of that.”
“You’re spouting nonsense again. What happened yesterday?”
“Of course something happened! While you were out meeting your girlfriend I went to grab water and ran into the seniors. Those bastards told me once I turn pro we should hit a club together—said they’d introduce me to some ‘nice guys.’ I was so scared I just nodded and bolted.”
“Why? You said you wanted to go clubbing. Getting introduced to nice people sounds good, doesn’t it?”
Han Gang-rok’s eyes went wide. He leaned in and hissed into my ear.
“Fuck, the clubs I like are the ones full of girls. Not the ones where gay guys compete for center position in girl-group choreography, got it?”
“Got it, you little shit.”
“Haa. You have no idea the suffering. I spent the whole walk back watching my six in case someone jumped me from behind! Last night I was so scared I locked my door for the first time since joining the club.”
Still rattled by the memory, he glanced at the seniors a few rows ahead, shuddered, and shook his head hard before turning back to me.
“Anyway, Yi-an. Did you see that interview from the Suwon side? They name-dropped us.”
Suwon gave an interview and mentioned us?
“Didn’t see it. What did they say?”
“Before the match a reporter asked the Suwon manager about Jeonbuk’s squad, and our new faces came up. And the manager said this—”
He made a wait-a-second gesture, pulled out his phone, tapped a few times, and handed me the screen.
The headline alone was enough to make my eyes water.
“Unbelievable.”
“Right? Even if they’re the opposing team, that’s too much to say about kids, isn’t it?”
It was exactly the kind of comment that would make Han Gang-rok throw a fit.
“Not considering them.” On the surface it wasn’t the most vicious trash talk. From a player’s perspective, though, it was one of the most humiliating things you could hear.
Saying you’ve found a way to shut a player down, or that you’ll make sure he does nothing all match—that’s almost a compliment. It means the guy is dangerous enough to plan around.
But “not even considering them”? That was pure dismissal. We were so irrelevant we weren’t even worth the mental energy.
It’s so ridiculous I almost want to laugh.
In the old days I probably would have clenched my fists and seethed. Whether past life or this one, my first professional club had been Jeonbuk, so my feelings toward Suwon Ohseong were pure poison.
Not anymore.
This body carried the memories of a career that started at Jeonbuk and ran through Juventus and Newcastle. I didn’t disrespect Suwon, but those memories were intact, and the body was fully primed.
Fear and rage no longer had room to live. Something else had already filled that space.
Bzzzt—
They came all this way. Least I can do is repay them with a thrashing.
I put the phone down and looked out the window. Big Bird—Suwon World Cup Stadium—was already right in front of us. A crooked smile tugged at my lips.