Chapter 57
***
When I turned my head, I was just as startled as Union Berlin's players.
Behind my back, Thomas Tuchel was glaring at me.
Philipp Lahm, whom I knew from Stuttgart, was desperately holding back his laughter.
“Thomas!”
Seeing Tuchel, I greeted him warmly.
It was a desperate effort to survive.
Well, Thomas Tuchel did glare at me for a bit, but soon he broke into a light laugh.
We exchanged a quick hug, and Thomas Tuchel whispered in my ear.
“See me after this is over.”
Since he had to mind his dignity as a manager, it was probably awkward to chew me out openly in front of the squad.
Well, if this had been the old Tuchel, he would have torn into me without a second thought, but spending time with me seemed to have mellowed him a lot.
‘Who do you think I am? The man who taught Thomas Tuchel how to be sociable.’
Union Berlin's players were looking at me with amazed expressions after I badmouthed Thomas Tuchel and lived to tell the tale.
***
Even during the Thomas Tuchel takedown campaign, an unexpected incident had occurred, but the result was the same.
The players seemed to have relaxed from the shock of Tuchel's sudden appearance.
“Do you want to live under Tuchel's rule!”
“Nein!!”
The newly recruited Union Berlin players looked puzzled, but I rallied the existing players.
When I turned my head, I could see cameras scattered all over the stadium.
The Bayern Munich-Union Berlin match was scheduled to be broadcast.
And apparently it was also going to be broadcast in Korea and Japan.
‘I get Korea, but why Japan?’
I couldn't understand his popularity in Japan, but if he was popular there, I supposed that was a good thing.
Personally, I was in favor of broadcasting preseason matches. We'd agreed to take a decent cut of the broadcast fee.
Anyway, a little later.
The preseason friendly between Bayern Munich and Union Berlin began.
***
Thomas Tuchel.
He had arranged a preseason friendly with Union Berlin in order to gain the authority to rein in Bayern Munich's star players.
Bayern Munich's players were full of pride in their own ability,
and they couldn't understand a manager from a lower division like Tuchel giving them orders.
There were also people in the club's upper management who acknowledged Thomas Tuchel's potential but felt it was still too early for him to take the helm of a giant like Bayern Munich.
For Thomas Tuchel to gain a manager's authority, he needed to show that even lower-division teams weren't pushovers.
In that sense, the match against Union Berlin was suitable in many ways.
If they got badly beaten by Union Berlin once, the club and the players would learn something.
Tuchel turned his gaze to Union Berlin.
The Union Berlin he had left behind was now regarded as a weak side in the second-division relegation zone.
‘Those idiots can't see what's essential.’
Although Thomas Tuchel himself had been steadily praising Park Chanhyeok to the press, the media still said they couldn't believe an Asian coach would properly lead a team.
It was because of Europe's deeply rooted racist prejudice that Asian football people couldn't succeed there.
‘What a shame. It would've been nice to bring him to Bayern Munich.’
The thing Thomas Tuchel valued most in Park Chanhyeok wasn't tactics or squad management.
It was his insane ability to get impossible tasks done.
In fact, it isn't common to give a chief coach as much authority as Park Chanhyeok was given.
Because I kept finding Park Chanhyeok's ability to get things done despite complaining so fascinating, I kept piling on more and more work, and naturally the chief coach's authority grew.
For the record, even Union Berlin chairman Dirk Chingler had found it fascinating and once slyly dumped some of his own work onto Park Chanhyeok.
‘Looking back now, it was a pretty enjoyable memory.’
But even Thomas Tuchel, who prided himself on understanding Park Chanhyeok best,
‘...What the hell is that guy doing now?’
He couldn't understand why I had put the striker 'Thomas Meyer' in the defensive midfield spot.
***
There was no special reason why I had Thomas Meyer play defensive midfield.
I tried him there once in training, and he turned out better than I expected.
His tackling stats were a little lacking, but Thomas Meyer's diligence was a huge help.
In fact, the role of a defensive midfielder on our team wasn't all that different from that of a central midfielder.
Against a giant like Bayern Munich, it felt a bit empty to leave the defensive midfield spot vacant, so I put him there.
You could say the formation was basically a 4-2-3-1 optimized for high pressing.
I had no intention of playing timidly against Bayern Munich. I didn't want a boring match where we cowered back and just looked for one counterattack.
We were going to press Bayern Munich aggressively today.
After all, it was a preseason match.
Even if we were to suffer a crushing defeat, it wouldn't be a loss if the players could learn something from it.
If not now, when else would Union Berlin's players get to go all out against Bayern Munich, the team known as Germany's strongest, without worrying about the aftermath?
“Even if you take ten hits and land one back, that's still a profitable deal. Don't be afraid of conceding goals—just attack!”
I shouted at the players to go ahead and get beaten, as long as they landed one good shot back.
“Eisernen!!”
“Union!”
The players answered with smiles too.
***
At the same time.
[Hello, football fans across the nation.]
[Today's broadcast match is none other than the preseason friendly between Union Berlin and Bayern Munich. Bayern Munich is, needless to say, one of the strongest teams in Europe. And Union Berlin, despite being in the second division, is a club well known to Korean football fans.]
Even though it was the middle of the night, more viewers than expected were watching the Union Berlin-Bayern Munich match.
- Let's get promoted to the first division like this...!
- Honestly, back-to-back-to-back promotion seems tough.
- Let's think positively! We can do it!
That was because interest in Union Berlin's preseason had been higher than expected. Football fans poured out passionate support for Union Berlin.
- Still, since it's Bayern Munich, this match is probably going to be tough, right?
- Please, if you're Korean, let's support Union Berlin!
- Since it's a friendly and not an official match, I hope they put on a good game without any injuries.
It was because Union Berlin was widely seen as a 'Korean' team.
These days, South Korea was in the era of national hype, when public broadcasters would shout, 'Do you know kimchi?'
South Korea's economy had grown rapidly through the Miracle on the Han River, and it possessed several globally famous conglomerates.
But even so, the country's brand recognition was still low.
If you asked a Westerner right now whether they knew Korea, six out of ten would react with, 'Is there even a country like that?' The remaining three would say 'Rocket Man,' and the last one would say it was the country between Japan and China.
Because of this environment, a hunger for recognition had taken root in the hearts of South Koreans,
and the public's yearning had come out in the worst possible form: 'Do you know kimchi?'
In that situation, Union Berlin made pro-Korean moves.
It was a coincidence brought about by Thomas Tuchel's recommendation, but in any case they brought in a Korean chief coach, and that chief coach created a Korean-language website.
Since the person managing the site was Korean, it was only natural that they would observe holidays related to Korea, but Union Berlin's moves were a hugely pleasant shock to Korean fans.
- M-my goodness, a German club is observing March 1st Movement Day...! (choked up)
- Germany is celebrating Korea's independence?
What's more, Union Berlin was overflowing with romance.
The sight of fans donating blood to save the club reminded Korean fans of the IMF-era gold collection campaign.
Because of all this, Koreans had a very favorable image of Union Berlin.
- As expected, a company with GL independence-activist roots is different from the ground up.
- Patriotism isn't just about doing something different. Helping someone like Park Chanhyeok, who is making our country known around the world, is patriotism too.
- Cheering is patriotism!
When news that GL Group would help build Union Berlin's stadium reached Korea, it also gave GL Group's image a significant boost.
Union Berlin already had a good image among Koreans for a variety of reasons.
News that the Korean chief coach at Union Berlin had become the manager went beyond simple support and reached the point where Union Berlin practically became South Korea itself.
[Manager Park Chanhyeok, another source of pride for South Korea, is leading Union Berlin!!]
[Manager Park Chanhyeok, who is 20 years old by international age, has entered the record books as the youngest manager. Personally, I think it's one of those records that will never be broken.]
Before I knew it, South Korean football fans had begun to watch the Union Berlin-Bayern Munich match with the perspective of a national-team showdown.