Chapter 119
After Robert Lewandowski’s goal, Union Berlin maintained the momentum that had swung their way and pressed Bayern Munich hard.
Thomas Meyer’s intense pressing forced Schweinsteiger to lose the ball.
Kagawa Shinji picked up the loose ball and immediately threaded a pass through.
But Kagawa Shinji’s pass toward Robert Lewandowski was slightly too long.
The ball failed to reach Robert Lewandowski and went out beyond the goal line.
“Kagawa! Fußballgott!!”
Union Berlin’s home fans put their disappointment behind them, applauding and encouraging the players.
Backed by the home fans’ support and home-field advantage, Union Berlin was pushing Bayern Munich around.
An ordinary team might have been dragged into the game like this, but Bayern Munich, freed from the shackles of Jürgen Klinsmann, began to show its true strength.
“Spread out as much as possible and attack!!”
Jupp Heynckes issued instructions to his players from the touchline,
and Bayern Munich’s players immediately carried out their manager’s orders.
“Frank Ribéry’s solo run!”
“He’s broken through Union Berlin’s famed Berlin Wall! Frank Ribéry shoots right away!!”
“Gooooooooal─! Bayern Munich’s equalizer! Frank Ribéry scores the equalizer!!”
Frank Ribéry tore apart Union Berlin’s right flank and entered the penalty box.
Ribéry’s shot, taken half a beat early, found the back of the net guarded by Manuel Schmidt.
The moment Union Berlin conceded, the spectators’ eyes turned toward Park Chan-hyuk.
They were curious to see whether Park Chan-hyuk would celebrate.
But contrary to the spectators’ expectations, Park Chan-hyuk did not celebrate.
He simply wasn’t at ease enough to celebrate the opposing team’s goal.
***
‘……Do I celebrate this? Or not?’
For a fleeting moment, I was engulfed by intense indecision.
The opportunity to celebrate had finally come again after so long, and I was getting fired up.
‘Phew, let’s not….’
But I had a strong feeling that if I celebrated now, I wouldn’t be able to turn the atmosphere of the match around.
After desperately fighting to restrain myself, I managed to hold back.
My hands and feet were trembling, and my mouth kept watering….
In any case, I endured it.
“……At this point, you might as well celebrate.”
It had gotten so bad that even assistant coach Daniel Teixeira encouraged me.
“Gah…! How dare you try to tempt me!”
But I did not succumb to the devil’s temptation.
Anyway, what Union Berlin needed now was a goal.
We had to score and land a blow on Bayern Munich, whose momentum had risen after scoring.
“If we conceded one, score two more from here on out! You bastards!”
I encouraged the players from the touchline and instructed them to attack aggressively instead of shrinking back.
Even if we failed to clinch the league title today, we could simply clinch it in the next match.
I was telling the players to play with as little pressure as possible.
And above all.
‘The referee is half on our side in this match.’
In this primitive age without even VAR, the referee had no choice but to make calls while keeping the spectators in mind.
The referee was human too, so when tens of thousands of spectators erupted in boos, he would begin to wonder whether his call had been wrong.
‘When I appear on broadcasts, even a passing malicious comment bothers me. That’s only natural for a human being.’
It wasn’t for no reason that celebrities were hurt by malicious comments and sometimes took their own lives.
Humans were social animals, and inevitably had to care about what the people around them thought.
And the same applied to me.
I was born in the Republic of Korea.
It was one of the countries most practiced at comparing themselves to others and living by reading the room.
‘Long years of humiliation and persecution... I was sick and tired of it.’
It might be hard to believe, but I was also the type of person who cared what those around me thought.
If I hadn’t cared about the people around me, I would have run to the corner flag the moment we conceded.
[But seriously, doesn’t Korean soccer need a manager like Park Chan-hyuk, someone who’d even take on the association?]
└ Agreed, someone like Park Chan-hyuk would be the best national team manager.
└ And he’d have to understand Korean culture.
└ You just want to see Park Chan-hyuk manage the national team, lol.
Judging by recent public opinion in Korea, people seemed to think I was a lone-wolf type who never cared what anyone else thought.
Unfortunately, I had only picked fights when the timing allowed me to do so.
You could call it an incredible balancing act.
In fact, hadn’t I refrained from provoking people as much as possible after Thomas Tuchel left his position as manager?
Because of my image, the media had simply slapped the ‘provocation’ label on me first.
But it wasn’t entirely my fault that such an image had formed.
‘These fucking racists…! They’ve painted me as a villain.’
I also thought the German media, from the homeland of the ‘Yellow Peril’ theory, bore some responsibility.
While I was standing on the touchline with a serious expression, lost in thought,
Union Berlin’s maestro and the Balkan Zidane, Luka Modrić, sent an incredible through ball into the path of the advancing Son Heung-min.
Son Heung-min received the ball, cut into the penalty box, and attempted a curling shot from the spot that would later be called the Hongmin Zone.
Son Heung-min’s perfectly curled shot headed for a spot beyond the German goalkeeper’s reach and shook the back of the net.
I quietly applauded from the touchline, displaying the gravitas of a manager.
As for my body trembling violently─well, that was no different from a kind of physiological reaction.
***
“G, gooooooooal!! Son Heung-min! Son Heung-min’s wonder goal! Union Berlin takes a 2–1 lead!!”
“Son Heung-min’s timing on the run was incredible! A perfect run and a razor-sharp curling shot! Perhaps we’re witnessing the beginning of a legend!”
“Yes, that’s right! And Luka Modrić’s pass was precise as well!”
“It’s no wonder he’s called the Balkan Zidane. It would be no exaggeration to say that most of Union Berlin’s attacking routes originate from Modrić’s feet.”
The match continued even after Union Berlin took the lead again.
“Union Berlin and Bayern Munich are beginning to clash fiercely.”
“Yes, perhaps because of that instant back-and-forth exchange, the match feels even hotter.”
Union Berlin and Bayern Munich.
The two teams clashed fiercely without giving an inch.
“Bayern Munich’s intense pressing, but Luka Modrić exchanges passes with Thomas Meyer and beats the press.”
“This player certainly has tremendous composure. I can understand Manager Park Chan-hyuk’s decision to lie down at home and clean the floor to sign Modrić.”
Bayern Munich tried to focus its defensive attention on Modrić, but he easily played the ball around with his nearby teammates and escaped the pressure.
“Yes… And for anyone who may not know, Guten, currently Union Berlin’s main sponsor, is known to be a company owned by Manager Park Chan-hyuk’s family.”
As the commentators began explaining more about Park Chan-hyuk’s family,
Union Berlin got a good scoring opportunity.
The match clock ticked by quickly,
and before long, it was just before halftime.
“Oh? Kagawa Shinji has intercepted Schweinsteiger’s pass!”
“Union Berlin counterattack! Lewandowski is running forward!”
“Kagawa Shinji, to Lewandowski…!”
Union Berlin succeeded in creating one final attacking opportunity.
“Robert Lewandowski is going doooooown!”
“He’s pointed to the spot! Referee! He awards a penalty!!!”
A Bayern Munich player clipped Lewandowski’s leg while defending.
With a defender blocking his angle for a shot, Lewandowski chose to go down rather than stubbornly force his way through.
The moment Lewandowski went tumbling to the ground, the referee blew his whistle for a foul.
“Referee!! That Polish guy is putting on a Hollywood act, I’m telling you!”
“That remark is problematic, so watch your language.”
Bayern Munich’s players ran over to the referee and insisted that it had been a Hollywood act, but the referee firmly shook his head.
The referee happened to have a clear view, so he had seen it perfectly.
And at the same time.
“The referee saw it exactly right. He clipped the leg, not the ball!”
The Korean commentators’ excitement had reached an all-time high.
“Union Berlin’s penalty kick! The taker is…! Cafu!”
“Lewandowski was shaken up by being kicked, and Son Heung-min is far too young, so it seems Union Berlin’s veteran Cafu will take it.”
A moment later, the referee’s whistle sounded.
Cafu slowly ran toward the ball,
Ripple─!
and struck it hard toward the bottom-left corner, sending it into the back of Bayern Munich’s net.
“Gooooooooal! It’s in! Cafu! Union Berlin’s veteran Cafu scores an additional goal!!”
***
The moment Cafu’s penalty found the back of Bayern Munich’s net,
“Long-term investment in Union Berlin, let’s go!!!!”
Park Jeong-ah threw both hands into the air.
After watching Union Berlin’s matches live, she had gradually fallen in love with soccer as well.
Her mother and father were there beside her,
and they could not hide their tears as they watched Union Berlin clinch the league title.
“That rascal Chan-hyuk watched soccer from a young age, and he ended up proving himself.”
“I was so worried because that kid Chan-hyuk didn’t even have the one ordinary perfect-attendance award everyone else got….”
“Still, it’s a relief that Jeong-ah is good at studying. You’ll definitely get into a good university, Jeong-ah.”
Park Jeong-ah could only smile awkwardly as her parents tried to pressure her without saying a word.
‘……No, seriously, my damn older brother is a regressor, so what kind of school life did he even have?’