Chapter 79
After beating last season's Bundesliga champions, Union Berlin carried that momentum into the next league match and won easily as well.
[Mainz, racing toward promotion after beating Borussia Mönchengladbach….]
[Mainz manager Jürgen Klopp: “The season isn't over yet. We'll keep giving our best for promotion until the very end.”]
Just then, Borussia Mönchengladbach, the top team in the 2. Bundesliga, lost to Mainz.
Union Berlin managed to narrow the gap to Borussia Mönchengladbach to just one point.
[Union Berlin defeat TuS Koblenz 2-1… Kim Min-hyeok puts in a solid performance after coming on as a substitute….]
[Union Berlin win 1-0 away at 1860 Munich! Lee Seong-jae assist!]
Union Berlin kept racking up points.
[Borussia Mönchengladbach lose to Cologne….]
[Union Berlin claims first place in the 2. Bundesliga…!]
And by the time Union Berlin finally reached the top of the second division.
[DFB-Pokal quarterfinal, Union Berlin vs. Bayern Munich….]
└ Damn it, Chan-hyeok, seriously, let's give up on the Pokal and win the second division instead.
└ What the hell is with beating Stuttgart 5-0 like that lol
└ Those Munich bastards are pure shock and awe, seriously lol
└ I've finally realized it.
└ Realized what?
└ Union Berlin <<< this bastard was Tuchel's restraint lol
└ Exactly lol
Before long, the DFB-Pokal quarterfinal against Bayern Munich was right around the corner.
***
After the match against Stuttgart ended, I had to go through a hectic stretch.
Interview requests from the press, along with transfer offers from fairly well-known clubs, started pouring in.
Among them were clubs whose names alone made them impossible to turn down.
But I rejected every offer, interviews included.
The season wasn't over yet.
And even if the season ended, I didn't think I would transfer.
I'd already invested far too much in Union Berlin.
If the 2015 amendment to the 50+1 exception clause were revised, clubs could be owned on the condition of more than 20 years of steady investment and support, so there was no need to look for another club.
Still, the problems with that clause were clear enough.
'But honestly, I'm worried. Will the fans really agree to it willingly?'
Union Berlin's fans were the ones who had hurled every kind of curse at Hoffenheim and Leipzig, after all.
On top of that, I also had to consider the backlash from Bundesliga fans.
'...Still, I thought maybe they'd accept it.'
Still, there was a little room for wishful thinking.
Union Berlin hadn't climbed up because of some owner's money-spending spree.
So I probably wouldn't get lumped together with Hoffenheim and beaten down as a set.
'If a club that had no money had to build its stadium by bleeding its fans dry, and people still called that an owner's cash splurge, I might actually cry....'
Still, even if I didn't own the club, as long as Chairman Dirk Zingler kept his position and I kept mine as manager, I could steer the club's policy in the direction I wanted.
'Because Chairman Dirk Zingler is also my biggest supporter.'
That was possible because Chairman Dirk Zingler discovering both me and Thomas Tuchel was his greatest achievement. In other words, the two of us were something like a partnership bound by fate.
[DFB-Pokal quarterfinal, Union Berlin vs. Bayern Munich.]
Anyway.
The players' grim expressions were obvious in the training session preparing for the Pokal quarterfinal.
'Well... can't be helped, I guess?'
Union Berlin's next opponent was Bayern Munich, the Bundesliga's worst and strongest team.
[‘Home fortress’ Union Berlin, another upset in the making?]
At least, the one saving grace was that the match was at Union Berlin's home ground.
With the home fans' fierce support, it wasn't an exaggeration to call it hell for the visiting team.
'Once the stadium they're building now is finished, it'll definitely be something worth seeing.'
Especially, the atmosphere created by the east stand of the new stadium was overwhelming.
The support messages donated by the fans were written there, and just looking at them made my chest swell.
And apparently, the other players felt the same.
- Thomas Tuchel: I'll be looking forward to a good match tomorrow.
Anyway, I spent the whole night reviewing tactics before the match.
'Being young really is a blessing.'
In fact, I'd been taking care of my health steadily all along.
I died of sudden cardiac arrest in my previous life.
No one who'd regressed would want to live a short life.
Wanting to live long was human instinct.
But ahead of the Bayern Munich match, my mindset was different from usual.
I didn't want to be crushed in my first official match against Thomas Tuchel.
In this life, Thomas Tuchel was my benefactor.
Because I wanted to show my benefactor how much I'd grown.
'We probably don't have a chance of winning, but let's still do our best.'
And above all.
A manager shouldn't give up before the players do.
***
At the same time.
Thomas Tuchel was analyzing Union Berlin's tactics.
'He took the tactics I made and put his own color on them.'
It didn't take Thomas Tuchel very long to analyze Union Berlin's tactics.
That was how familiar Union Berlin's tactics were to him.
Overall, the tactics Union Berlin was using now felt like Thomas Tuchel's framework, with Park Chan-hyeok layering his own style over it.
“Clever.”
Thomas Tuchel nodded as he looked over Union Berlin's tactics.
That was Park Chan-hyeok's correct judgment.
There probably just hadn't been enough time to fully imprint his own style on the squad.
And you could tell Park Chan-hyeok's thinking wasn't wrong just by looking at the current 2. Bundesliga standings.
Union Berlin sitting at the top of the 2. Bundesliga proved it.
'I wish he'd come with me back then.'
Even Thomas Tuchel, right up until just before the league kicked off, couldn't have imagined Union Berlin becoming a promotion-bound team.
They were a team whose league participation had been suspended because of the stadium's dilapidation.
But Park Chan-hyeok's leadership turned hardship into opportunity.
[Union Berlin holds preseason training at a construction site?]
[An Asian manager's bizarre antics…. Is Union Berlin really okay?]
Park Chan-hyeok had brought the team together in a way no ordinary manager could have thought of.
'That's not the kind of leadership just anyone can have.'
Park Chan-hyeok was always cheerful, and he trusted his players completely.
'If he'd been there, would life at Bayern have been a little better….'
Only after breaking away from Park Chan-hyeok did Thomas Tuchel fully realize that he'd been coasting as a manager all that time.
Park Chan-hyeok had done everything he could to prevent conflicts with the club and had taken care of the players' mental state in his place.
'Phew….'
Anyway.
Park Chan-hyeok's tactics were impressive to Thomas Tuchel as well.
“He used the players' synergy to maximize their strengths and hide their weaknesses.”
It might have been hard for other teams to notice, but not for Thomas Tuchel.
That was partly because he was that good, but also because they were players Tuchel had personally coached.
In Thomas Mayer's case, he'd fully adapted to the midfielder position. The combination of the tireless Thomas Mayer and Markus Matchke, who could thread creative passes, was excellent.
“Still, it's been a while since I got to play such an interesting match.”
Even though the preseason match against Union Berlin had helped him take control of the squad, Thomas Tuchel had no intention of showing Union Berlin any mercy.
A match was a ruthless business.
Thomas Tuchel decided to send out all of Bayern Munich's regular starters.
It was his way of showing that he wouldn't be complacent against Park Chan-hyeok's Union Berlin.
“I'm not sure it's right to field a full-strength lineup instead of rotating against a second-division side.”
But Bayern's legends immediately objected to fielding the starters against a team like Union Berlin.
In a league where clubs had owners, the legends wouldn't be able to wield that much influence in the locker room.
Unfortunately, the Bundesliga's 50+1 policy made that possible.
The positions that could determine the club's policies were occupied by the team's legendary players.
And their politicking to protect their own positions was beyond imagination.
To keep the rival faction in check, even internal club information was easily leaked to the outside through those 'legends'.
Up until now, most managers had taken the attitude of respecting the club legends.
There was nothing to gain from getting on bad terms with the club legends.
“Do you think last season's Bundesliga champions, Stuttgart, are easy pickings?”
“The current opponent isn't Stuttgart.”
“Exactly. It's the team that beat Stuttgart 2-1 even though Stuttgart fielded all their starters.”
“We can't understand that.”
“Of course you can't. You're not the manager responsible for wins and losses.”
But Thomas Tuchel's temper was on a completely different level from the previous managers'. Thomas Tuchel kept needling the legends.
“Do you know Union Berlin better than I do? Then you take over. I'll step down as manager. If you've got better tactical skill and judgment than I do, then why don't you just be the manager? Surely you're not thinking that you don't want the job of being responsible for wins and losses and only want to sit back and play armchair coach, are you?
Oh. If that's really the case, then I don't know whether you truly care about this team.”
This was because Thomas Tuchel was also brimming with frustration over the behavior of those Bayern Munich legends.
The relationship between Thomas Tuchel and Bayern Munich was already on the verge of blowing up.