Chapter 106
***
Hearing the agent’s words, I began doing my best to keep my expression under control.
I put on the face of someone who had never heard of a player named Casemiro.
“Casemiro… I don’t think I’ve heard of him.”
“Haha. That’s understandable. He’s a promising young player who hasn’t made his professional debut yet. But when it comes to talent, he’s exceptional.”
“Hmm… I tend not to trust players I haven’t personally watched or who haven’t been scouted by Union Berlin.”
“I see. But I’m confident Casemiro will become a world-class footballer before long.”
If I had my way, I would have handed him a contract right then and there and gotten it signed, but
I didn’t rashly say that I wanted to sign Casemiro.
The moment I revealed that I wanted to sign Casemiro here,
that agent would obviously advertise him not only to Union Berlin but to all sorts of other clubs.
‘There’s no need to pay an inflated transfer fee to sign him.’
So I began pretending not to be interested as much as possible.
“Hmm. At that price, his transfer fee sounds like it would be rather high…”
“Even so, couldn’t you make time to watch him just once?”
“……All right. Then we’ll have him take a trial before the transfer window opens. However, if he passes the trial, he must sign with Union Berlin.”
In fact, that was a completely unreasonable condition.
But I pressed the condition on the agent.
‘It’d be a loss if he ran off to another club after I gave him a good evaluation.’
I was the one with the upper hand right now.
Casemiro himself might be offended by this,
but…
“Yes. There’s no problem. Casemiro really does want to come to Union Berlin.”
It didn’t seem like that would be a problem.
Before I knew it, Union Berlin had become an El Dorado for promising prospects.
***
Around the time my conversation with Casemiro’s agent ended on a positive note,
the TikTok app Park Jeong-a had launched began spreading rapidly alongside the global proliferation of smartphones.
Until just before its launch, I had wondered if the timing was a little early, but Park Jeong-a had pushed ahead, telling me to trust her.
She had proven herself right.
“Oppa, remember this: good products and good services become trendy on their own.”
I had considered whether to manage TikTok and Guten separately, like Elon Musk,
but Park Jeong-a simply made TikTok a subsidiary of Guten.
The decision was made for Guten to acquire TikTok.
For reference, in exchange for 51 percent of TikTok, we were to receive 5 percent of Guten and cash.
I wondered if we couldn’t just take the entire payment in shares,
but according to Park Jeong-a, if we accepted only shares, we might be torn apart by antitrust laws.
Well. From the outset, Guten itself had been a private company in which my family held nearly 50 percent. This acquisition of TikTok added roughly another 5 percent, giving my family control of 55 percent of Guten.
The German pension fund held 11 percent, leaving 32 percent in public hands.
And our remaining 2 percent was held by friendly shareholders.
Ah. For reference, I’m talking about shares with voting rights.
We had also released plenty of non-voting shares, like Google.
We had to learn from the best.
Well. I wasn’t particularly interested in running companies or making money.
Park Jeong-a was handling all that just fine.
“No, seriously, why didn’t you short everything during the subprime mortgage crisis? You could’ve made money hand over fist by shorting it.”
And whenever I found my overly cautious younger sister’s attitude frustrating and offered her my two cents,
“Oppa, shut up and just focus on football.”
Since my little sister always hurled a stream of curses back at me, I had stopped giving her advice as much as possible.
Anyway.
After TikTok launched, the stock prices of the companies Park Jeong-a was running soared.
My assets were growing even while I did nothing but breathe.
‘Is this what it means to get rich with a click?’
Still, reporters sometimes came to ask how I planned to run Guten in the future.
My little sister’s face had yet to be exposed in the media.
In other words, whenever Guten did well, I was always the one who got the attention.
[Park Chan-hyuk, Heir to the New Chaebol ‘Guten,’ Answers a Reporter’s Question… “That’s Not Fun or Cool.”]
No reporter in the world had the nerve to publicly reveal the face of a chaebol who didn’t want his identity exposed, even at the risk of his life,
so all the reporters’ attention was directed at me.
“Do you have any plans to apply CSV to your corporate operations?”
Well. Whenever reporters asked questions, all I could do was waffle and gloss over them.
‘……SCV? Isn’t that a Terran worker?’
The words the reporters used in their questions were ones I had never heard in my life.
Well, unlike my complete ignorance of corporate management, I had reached the pinnacle when it came to running Union Berlin.
“Once the stadium is finished, we’ll need to bring in food-court vendors and food trucks. What do you think about holding something like a cooking competition and uploading it to TikTok as an entertainment show? We could also use this opportunity to create YouTube and TikTok accounts under the Union Berlin name.”
“……Could you stop bringing me more work for a while?”
“You don’t like the idea?”
“No, the idea itself is good… But haven’t I already got way too much work piling up because of you!”
“Okay. Then I’ll leave it to you! Thanks for your hard work!”
Whenever I tossed a fresh idea at Chairman Dirk Zingler, he would take it upon himself to turn it into a concrete project.
“Oppa, can’t we just acquire the club under a nominee’s name?”
Recently, Park Jeong-a had started coming around while Union Berlin was making a name for itself in the top flight.
And whenever Park Jeong-a tried to offer her two cents on running the club, I cut her off firmly.
“Damn it. Why do you think other clubs don’t do that? They can’t because of the backlash from German football fans! You told me to win over German football fans as much as possible for our family’s safety!”
Because it would obviously trigger a controversy over privatizing the club.
“……But who’s the person behind you?”
“My friend.”
“Your friend, but there seems to be quite an age gap?”
“She’s one year younger than me.”
“……”
Park Jeong-a always brought a woman with her, and I quickly realized that this little rascal was trying to force me into a political marriage.
***
Although Cafu had made headlines with his Fountain of Youth dribble, he had looked utterly exhausted afterward.
“Boss, I think Cafu probably needs to rest for the next match.”
At the medical coach’s words, I nodded.
Given Cafu’s age, there was nothing to be gained from pushing him too hard.
“I’ll give you some time off. Go play with your kid.”
I left Cafu off the squad for the next match and gave him some time off.
“My son is about the same age as you, Boss.”
“……You got married early.”
“So, Boss, aren’t you getting married? I had a child when I was your age.”
“Huh? Something urgent just came up, so I’ll be going now. Enjoy your vacation!”
In a split second,
I sensed the spirit of parents about to nag their child during the holidays coming from Cafu, and I made a quick escape.
After hurriedly leaving the medical center, I headed to where the prospects were training,
and called up Virgil van Dijk, who had finished adjusting to life in Germany, to the first team.
‘Later, we could go with Virgil on the left and Min-jae on the right.’
If Thiago Silva didn’t transfer, continuing to form a back three as we were doing now wasn’t a bad option.
‘At that point, we’d practically have a Wailing Wall.’
Speaking of which.
Back when Union Berlin was in the second division, attack had been its strength. But before I knew it, the team’s strongest point had become its defense.
And just as the saying in sports goes that attack brings in spectators while defense brings victories,
Union Berlin began piling up points at a rapid pace.
***
In the ninth round of the Bundesliga, Union Berlin defeated Hannover 4–0 and managed to keep a clean sheet.
[How Did Attack-Minded Union Berlin Become a Defensive Powerhouse?]
Union Berlin’s formidable defensive wall became a hot topic.
Then came the away match against Arminia Bielefeld in the tenth round of the Bundesliga.
With Union Berlin leading 2–0, Virgil van Dijk—who had finished adapting to Germany—came on in the 20th minute of the second half for the visibly exhausted Cafu.
In fact, prospects are more often handed their debuts at home than away.
It’s meant to help them adjust to the match in familiar surroundings with the support of their fans.
But Park Chan-hyuk didn’t offer Virgil that consideration.
He believed Virgil would be able to ignore pressure like this.
“Virgil, I want you to become a lion.”
For reference, even lions know how precious their cubs are and don’t throw them off cliffs.
But Park Chan-hyuk didn’t know.
Virgil van Dijk entered the match with Park Chan-hyuk’s encouragement,
[Virgil van Dijk’s fantastic clearance! That was truly a phenomenal defensive play worth as much as a goal!!]
and proved the talent he possessed.
***
[Virgil van Dijk Makes His Debut Away From Home. “When I listen to Boss, I often feel as if I’ve become the best defender in the world.”]
After the match ended, I immediately focused on devising tactics for the next game.
Union Berlin’s next opponent was—
[Union Berlin to Face Wolfsburg!]
Wolfsburg, who had won the title this season in the original timeline.