The Reason I Play Soccer (1)
The day I first kicked a ball unfolded before my eyes.
Elementary school, first grade. It was a ball I’d been half-forced to kick just to fit in with my friends.
Blazing sunlight. Heat haze rising from the ground. A chubby kid everyone avoided had been dragged out to the soccer field against his will. I stepped onto the sand-covered dirt. A ball dropped my way by chance. My leg moved on instinct.
BOOM—!!
The ball flew into the sky. It shot forward like a clothesline, straight and true, before slamming into the back of the net.
“W…whoa! Whoaaa! Suhyuk’s insane at soccer!!”
“Is Suhyuk seriously gonna become a pro player?”
The chubby, ugly kid who had no friends suddenly gained them—all because he was good at soccer. Sure, they were all boys. But to me, even that much attention felt like I’d conquered the world.
Soccer, started purely to get attention. Before I knew it, the weight began melting off.
“Suhyuk’s gotten kinda handsome lately, hasn’t he?”
“I dunno about that, but kids from the next neighborhood wanna play us. You in?”
“We betting field fees?”
“Yeah. Field costs 55,000 won. If we lose, it’s 5,000 won each.”
“But I’m short on allowance…”
“Just win. We’ve got Suhyuk.”
Before long, we were playing away games against other elementary schools. With me up front as striker, we won almost every match.
“Holy shit, I was so nervous we’d lose.”
“What if they scored on us? Suhyuk dropped five goals!”
“Hey, hey, Lee Suhyuk! Where’d you apply for middle school? You’re coming with me, right?”
The kid who used to be an outcast had become the hero of an entire school thanks to soccer.
That’s how I entered middle school.
“Wanna go out with me?”
I confessed to a girl I’d grown a little close to.
“…Hic, hic!”
Huh? She’s crying…
Well, I guess confessing only a week after the new school year started would be shocking. I decided to understand.
One month after starting school. Thanks to soccer, making guy friends was still easy. Every time I kicked a ball during lunch, girls would come watch.
…Maybe this time it’ll work?
I approached the girl who kept making eye contact with me. We’d never spoken, but we’d been locking eyes for a whole month.
“Let’s date.”
“Oh, fuck.”
Huh? She’s crying again…
How the hell do you even meet girls?
At some point, I started researching how to get a girlfriend far more seriously than I played soccer. Turns out girls like guys who are good at sports. They like guys who are good at soccer.
…But I am good at soccer.
“Dude, even if you’re good at soccer you still can’t get girls… Maybe I should just study instead. Soccer isn’t changing anything.”
The moment I said it as a joke, the eyes of the ten friends around me changed instantly.
“…Fuck no. Absolutely not.”
“No way, that’s not allowed, you crazy bastard!”
“…But you guys said girls like guys who are good at soccer. So why don’t they like me?”
They looked like they wanted to say the real answer but held back. Instead, they told me this:
“You gotta be overwhelmingly good!”
“…Overwhelmingly?”
“Yeah, dumbass. You gotta be as good as the guys on the school soccer team!”
That’s what they said?
“Look at the baseball and soccer team guys at our school. They all have girlfriends, right?”
“…Yeah, they do.”
“So be as good as the soccer team guys!”
The second I heard that, I joined the soccer club.
Middle school, first year. All because I wanted a girlfriend, I became a soccer player in my first year of middle school.
One year later, I was standing on the stage of the national tournament. If we won this match, it would be our school’s first-ever trip to the finals.
Whoooosh—!!
A pass coming my way. It was long. Two opposing defenders were already sprinting to intercept it. A trash pass that was way too long. I couldn’t reach it.
But… I had to.
The girls were watching.
I ran like hell. Among all the middle school soccer players in the country, I was confident I was easily top ten in pure speed. With my signature fluid movement, the moment I touched the ball I twisted my knee at an unnatural angle.
Whiiiiiish—!!
Even though I was the one doing it, the turn was so natural it looked like flowing water. I slipped past both defenders effortlessly. It was explosive dribbling, but I had to perfectly control the rhythm—slowing down when I needed to, then bursting forward without hesitation. After repeating the pattern a few times, an angle naturally opened up.
Shhhk—!!
My left foot snapped back powerfully. The instant the angle formed, I whipped the ball with the inside of my foot. The ball curled perfectly and wrapped itself into the upper left corner of the net.
A goal that got sucked right in.
“…!!”
My teammates swarmed me. A dramatic comeback goal scored in the first minute of second-half stoppage time. I had done it. I became the team’s hero and secured our spot in the finals!
The first time our soccer club had ever reached the finals—and I was the one who made it happen.
In other words, every single person in the stands was looking at me.
“Suhyuk, we survived today because of you. Seriously!”
“Thank you, Lee Suhyuk!”
“Lee Suhyuk, you crazy bastard… pulling off a dribble like that in that situation?”
“You were seriously fucking cool today, man.”
My teammates tossed compliments my way one after another. My lips curled up along with them.
When I leave the stadium today, surely at least one girl will reach out. I had a feeling. After all, even I thought I’d looked pretty damn cool out there today.
Yeah. Definitely.
With a heart full of nerves and excitement, I left the stadium. Some girls from a nearby girls’ middle school had come out to watch. Maybe one of them would ask for my SNS ID. Maybe one would ask for my number. That’s what I was thinking.
“Lee?”
No girls came. Instead, a middle-aged foreigner with an excessively long beard approached me. Without a word, he shoved a business card into my hand. He said something in English… but I had no idea what it meant.
When I looked at the card, it said he was a scout for the RCD Espanyol youth team from Spain’s top-division La Liga.
“This feels like shit.”
I muttered it out loud without thinking. Honestly, of course it felt like shit. Some scammer hands you a business card—how the hell are you supposed to feel good about that? Why would a scout from a La Liga team—one of Europe’s big five leagues—come all the way to Korea? Obviously a scammer.
“…Suhyuk, greet him right now! He’s a real scout!”
My coach said.
…He’s for real? Not lying?
Catalonia, Spain
Who is the king of Barcelona?
Nine out of ten people would give the same answer.
— FC Barcelona.
The streets were filled with kids wearing Barça uniforms and shops flying Barça flags. People talking about Barça everywhere. The sun of this city was Barça itself.
Where there is light, there are shadows. RCD Espanyol. The club sharing the same city. Some called them losers. Others called them perennial relegation candidates. And it was true. Their goal every season was simply to avoid dropping down.
Even so, the Espanyol fans—possessing a rebellious mix of inferiority, ambition, and fierce loyalty—never gave up. They believed that someday, somehow, a hero would emerge who wouldn’t cower against Barça.
A team without much money, without a youth factory, an underdog whose only goal was survival. They prayed for a hero to rise from it. They waited for a prospect who would carry Espanyol’s future.
And then.
Summer of 2026. On a day when the blazing sun poured down onto the pitch, a hero appeared in Espanyol’s youth team.
A young boy who had crossed over from Korea.
“They say he scored five goals in the test match?”
“He’s from Korea, right?”
“Yeah, the coaches are all going crazy saying he needs to be fast-tracked.”
“…He’ll probably just flash brightly and then disappear anyway.”
“I don’t know. This time even his eyes looked different.”
Under the fence of the training ground, Espanyol fans stared in one direction. A chilly breeze blew, scattering the boy’s black hair. An Asian boy with a still-youthful face.
It was Lee Suhyuk.
In just one year since arriving in Spain, the fourteen-year-old (Korean age sixteen) had successfully skipped grades into the U-18 team.
And at that very moment, he became the Short-term Flop.
“…He ruined the league again today.”
“Just a year ago we thought he’d become a hero.”
“…It was stupid of me to have expectations for some baby-faced Asian kid.”
Lee Suhyuk, who had belonged to Cadete A (top-tier 14–15 age group), had truly been a genius and a hero. If he continued developing, he looked like a player who could either bring in a massive transfer fee or become a hero for the first team.
But after just one year—just one year—Lee Suhyuk in Juvenil A (top-tier 17–18 age group) was different. He was the very definition of the Short-term Flop.
Among Westerners who were much bigger and stronger, it wasn’t easy for a still-developing Suhyuk to shine.
After the match, his personal agent approached him.
“Suhyuk, you okay?”
It had been a day where he missed two big chances within ten minutes and got subbed off. Suhyuk shook his head as if the answer was obvious.
“No, I’m not.”
Lately, for some reason, he felt like he had lost his motivation for soccer. Before, just having one girl in the stands was enough to fire him up. Being called a hero by the crowd gave him strength.
“But these days it’s not like that. It feels like soccer has become a job.”
It was no longer something done purely for fun. The weight on Suhyuk’s shoulders had grown heavy. The fans’ expectations were a burden, and whenever he heard their jeers, he wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.
And that wasn’t all. To move to Spain, his parents had quit their good jobs and transferred to a Spanish company. It was necessary so he could play for a Spanish team without legal issues. Because of that, his parents were now doing work they weren’t suited for and weren’t even getting high salaries.
If Suhyuk failed here, the family’s situation… well, it didn’t need to be said.
Whether he knew that pressure or not, his agent spoke coldly.
“Suhyuk. You have exactly six months. You need to prove yourself within six months. Otherwise you’ll have to go back to Korea.”
“…Yes.”
“How are things with your teammates lately?”
“Because I’m not performing, they barely even greet me.”
“Those bastards. They were all over you when you were doing well.”
“Well, I’m Asian, so I guess it can’t be helped.”
“Tomorrow’s your first day at the international school, right?”
Starting tomorrow, Suhyuk had to attend an international school in Spain.
“Yes.”
“At least study hard.”
“…Okay.”
Listening to his agent, Suhyuk felt his self-esteem drop even further. His hands trembled slightly.
And so the next day arrived.
Up until now, I had played soccer to survive, to avoid being weeded out from the team. That pressure had become a burden and caused my skills to decline. In that anxious state, whenever I played, I found myself looking at the opposing players instead of the stands.
But…
“Lee! Hero of Espanyol!”
“I’m coming to next week’s match. Can you please win? Kill those damn Barça bastards for us!”
“Lee! Why have you been so bad lately? I go to every game just to watch you!”
…Long live Spanish girls.
These beautiful girls had been watching all my matches.
I suddenly felt like I absolutely had to perform in next week’s game.
Aaah. I finally realized it.
The reason I play soccer.