Pohang Irons (3)

While Baek Yi-an tore up and down the pitch, Shin A-yoon sat in the skybox, chewing her nails down to the quick as she stared at the field below.

"Haa. They're coming out swinging from the opening whistle? Once they build momentum, they'll be a nightmare to handle. Someone needs to snap that streak before it gets out of hand."

She may not have known much about the finer points of football, but years of living as an athlete in a world of constant competition had taught her one hard truth.

If the other side was desperate to seize the initiative early, you had to pin them down for good before the match dragged on any longer.

Some people might argue it was better to take your time, fully analyze the opponent, and only then make your move. But football was not a sport that ever gave you that kind of luxury.

If this were a best-of-three or some other multi-set contest, you could afford to gift them a set for tactical reasons. In a situation like this, that kind of thinking was pure nonsense.

"Yeah… A-yoon. If it's okay, can I have a bite of your bossam? I'll share my jokbal with you."

"Hm? Sure. Help yourself. I didn't buy any of this anyway."

"You didn't buy it?"

"Nope. Some club official just showed up and dropped it all off. Said the coach bought it and told us to dig in without worrying."

"The coach?"

These days coaches bought food for a player's family, too?

Ha Ji-yoo tilted her head at the baffling thought, then decided not to dig any deeper.

Was that really so strange? Baek Yi-an meant a great deal to Jeonbuk. Maybe they just wanted to leave a good impression on his family.

Or maybe, when he renegotiated his contract, one of the clauses had been free meals for the player's relatives.

Yeah. That could be it.

The Baek Yi-an she had watched was someone whose personality defied all normal understanding. Spending time trying to predict an unpredictable person was a waste of energy. Better to just take things at face value.

"Right from the kickoff, Pohang is pressing with real intensity. Jeonbuk is being shoved back with no answers. This is a far cry from the side we're used to seeing."

"Jeonbuk has always been the team that answers pressure with even fiercer pressure of their own. Whether or not Pohang has clocked that, they're flooding the midfield with bodies and making it very clear they have no intention of giving an inch."

"More importantly—Pohang is coming out insanely hard. At this rate, they look dead set on scoring the opener. This would be the perfect time for Seung-hwan to just bang one in."

"…Might be tough. Yoon Seung-hwan is completely locked down by their back line. It'd be better if Yi-an could unlock things from midfield…"

"Come on. Look—there's a Pohang player glued right to Baek Yi-an. No matter how good he is, that's going to be rough."

It wasn't the Gal Cup, but a peculiar war of nerves was already seeping through the skybox.

If things dragged on much longer, a full-blown brawl for round two could have broken out at any second.

Fortunately, it never came to that.

"Unnie! Look! Oppa just broke through! He's got it, right?!"

"Aaaah! Yi-an—!"

After being shoved backward without end, Jeonbuk suddenly punched a pass into Baek Yi-an. He immediately slipped the onrushing defender, carved out space, and then threaded a clean ball through to Yoon Seung-hwan—ripping straight through Pohang's midfield like a desert of sand.

"Ohhh!"

A one-on-one situation forged in an instant. The goalkeeper still waiting at the back meant no one could fully let their guard down yet.

But the fact that the man on the ball was Yoon Seung-hwan—who, like a croaker fish the moment autumn hits, had seen his form explode the second the season turned—was enough to soothe the fans' nerves.

And the moment the ball hit the net, Jeonju Castle began to boil over.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom!

"Waaaaah! Yi-an—! Hnghhh."

"Un-unnie! This thing is going to collapse! The glass is going to shatter, so cut it out, you lunatic!"

"Shin Seung-ah, let go of me! Can't you see Yi-an just tore them apart that beautifully for me to watch?!"

"Aigoo! What kind of nonsense is that?! Cool it already! Ji-yoo unnie? Don't just sit there watching—help me with her…"

"Uheuheung! Our Seung-hwan just… he just proposed to me, right? He said 'you kids,' so that means we're starting with at least two babies, right? Uheunghng."

"Wow… my unnie's bad enough, but her friend is completely unhinged too."

Was this what people meant by birds of a feather? Or was the proper phrase here "a pair of absolute lunatics"?

Either way, watching the two of them laugh and cry in turns like they'd been hit with full-blown menhera the second Jeonbuk scored, Shin Seung-ah felt her sanity start to slip.

In the end, she decided to just leave the disaster alone—it was clearly beyond her ability to fix.

"Screw it. If I'd known it would be like this, I should've just stayed home and streamed today. Tch… Huh? What the hell? There were more than five pieces of bossam left—who ate all of it?"

She had known today was not her day. But was it really necessary for things to go this far?

Shin Seung-ah let out a long sigh, set down her chopsticks, and decided to scroll through the community instead.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

They said there was no paradise in the place you ran to. That was exactly how Shin Seung-ah felt right now.

This place is packed with lunatics too, just as bad as the real world.

She had fled the abyss of reality only to land in an even deeper community abyss. Thoroughly fed up, Shin Seung-ah returned to the real world—

only to be greeted by the absolute maniacs in the skybox, still tearing into jokbal.

"Mmm. The jokbal is good too. Maybe it's because I'm in a good mood today?"

"Right? A-yoon, the replay's on!"

"Hm? Where where? Hup—! Our Yi-an looks way too handsome on that camera, doesn't he?"

Just as I had predicted—that scoring first would force ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them to change their stance—Pohang, who had been frothing at the mouth after Yoon Seung-hwan's goal, immediately quieted down.

They still kept a high line, but they no longer poured the same massive numbers into midfield.

With the middle of the park restored to normal, what I needed to do was obvious.

"If it isn't on, don't force the breakthrough! Don't rush it—recycle it back—ugh!"

"First touch looks a little rusty. I'll be confiscating this."

"Th-that bastard! Hey! Mark that son of a bitch right now!"

The moment a touch error popped up at the back of Pohang's shape, I pounced, stripped the ball, and cut it back out of the press.

It was barely even a real mistake—just a clumsy touch. But on a pitch this thin as ice, even a minor slip could become a snowball the size of a mountain.

Today's Pohang was no different.

"Ye-jun hyung! Take it, drive forward, then either find Gyeong-rok or switch it to the far side!"

Ye-jun hyung, sitting at fullback, eased the ball forward, and the second he crossed the center circle he whipped a switch to the opposite flank.

Whether they had expected him to link with Han Gyeong-rok or not, Pohang—already overloaded to the left—got hit with a congestion they never saw coming.

"Hey Shaperi! Onto my head!"

"…Got it."

In the wide-open half-space, Han Gang-rok combined with Shaperi, stormed into the box, and somehow managed to get his head on it.

Swishhh!

"You absolute pieces of—! What the hell is even on the right side?! And why is no one watching the left—AAAAARGH!"

"Little broooo!"

"Hyuuuung!"

"Little bro! Your hyung did it again! Mom said she wanted jokbal, right? Text the order when we hit the dressing room at half! Just leave out the buckwheat noodles!"

"Got it. Should we cut the cola too while we're at it? Or is that going too far?"

"Hey, you little punk. You not thinking about Mom's health? Cut the cola too and just order the jokbal. You know it has to be the full large set, right?"

Between Yoon Seung-hwan and those two… no matter how I look at it, I might be the only normal person left on this team.

Watching the twins run a full comedy routine by the corner flag, I turned my gaze to Chun-jae hyung beside me.

"Chun-jae hyung. No matter how I think about it, the only hope left for this team is you and me. Let's keep looking out for each other."

"You're just like thos—"

"…What was that?"

"Uuuum. Looking again, our Yi-an is definitely the purest angel here. Yep. Absolutely."

Chun-jae hyung glanced at me out of nowhere and hastily rewrote his sentence.

For a second I eyed him with suspicion, wondering if he was plotting something—but since he wasn't saying anything weird, there didn't seem to be any point in making an issue of it.

The first half between Jeonbuk and Pohang finished 2–0.

It was an away match, and Jeonbuk's form had been absurdly good, so Coach Park Tae-hyun had expected a difficult fight. What he had not expected was to concede two goals before the break.

Which made the volcanic rage he unleashed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on the players filing into the dressing room only natural.

"Are you joking right now?! What did I tell you?! Push them early however you can! Hold a proper line so the back doesn't stretch, and wait for your chance! So what the hell was that out there?!"

"…"

In a certain light, it looked like he was dumping the blame for everything that had gone wrong on the pitch onto the players.

Of course, the old saying that football is a manager's game meant a player's mistakes were ultimately the coach's responsibility as well. But recalling what Park Tae-hyun had actually said before kickoff, his fury wasn't that strange.

At the start of the match, his instructions had been simple: flood the midfield with bodies to disrupt their build-up, and keep the spacing tight enough to guard against any sudden accidents.

Bang!

Park Tae-hyun slammed his palm down on the board sitting in the middle of the dressing room, breathing hard through his nose.

"Look! When Jeong-woo is stuck to Baek Yi-an—look at the second and third lines! Does that even make sense?! I put players in there to clog the midfield, so why are you spreading the line and handing them gaps?! Did I tell you to counter-press the second they receive the ball? No! I told you to stay measured, and if they look like they're recycling it deep, drop back and reset the shape! Why can't you even execute that?!"

Watching a team fail at the most basic task of holding a line—how furious would any coach be in that position?

And they had already eaten two goals. Not from long balls skipping the midfield, either—from patient, structured possession.

In that sense, Park Tae-hyun's anger was entirely justified.

"Haa."

With everything tangled this badly, a heavy breath slipped from the coach's mouth.

A complete thrashing. Keep going like this and third place wouldn't just slip away—the teams climbing from behind would feast on them instead.

You can't put spilled water back in the glass.

In that case, you just had to refill it carefully enough that no one noticed the spill.

Park Tae-hyun closed his eyes, cooled his temper for a moment, then looked back at the board. He shifted the magnets around, then stepped in front of his players.

"We're going a different way in the second half. Jeonbuk keeps obsessing over possession. With the quality of resources they have for build-up, they know settled possession is the kit that fits them best."

He already knew that from previous matches.

He also knew that if they naively tried to win the ball and play through possession against the current Jeonbuk side, they wouldn't just get picked apart—they'd get beaten black and blue.

So Park Tae-hyun decided to play the long game.

"We hand them the possession. But we make sure our final third is a place they can never cross easily."

For the sake of a win, it was ruthlessly efficient football.

And Park Tae-hyun knew exactly how to play it.

"I'll explain it fast, so listen up. Let's flip the atmosphere in the second half!"