Chapter 86
***
[Union Berlin beat Mainz 3-1 to secure the victory.]
[Union Berlin reclaimed first place in the 2. Bundesliga.]
[The fiercest title race in history—has attention shifted to the 2. Bundesliga?]
[Park Chan-hyeok on the controversy over his childish celebration... “One day, people will recognize it. That’s Hoo for you.”]
└ What the hell is this bastard saying?
└ This is Park Chan-hyeok’s thing—he occasionally just loses his mind in interviews.
└ Bet he’s probably worrying about what’s for dinner right now.
[Son Hong-min answers a reporter’s question about the double celebration with Park Chan-hyeok... “Preplanned celebration? No. It was completely unplanned. I saw Chan-hyeok hyung—no, the boss—running to the corner flag, and I realized that if I wanted to keep my celebration from being stolen, I had to run for my life too.”]
└ Damn lol, Chan-hyeok, stop stealing everyone’s celebrations.
└ For real, the full-speed sprint was fucking hilarious though.
└ But Union Berlin guys haven’t been doing knee-slide celebrations lately.
└ Yeah, I feel like they used to do them now and then.
└ Guess they’ve been holding back ever since people found out Park Chan-hyeok had ACL surgery, lolㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└ Fuck lol, but getting injured during a celebration is hilarious as hell.
***
“Jürgen, want to grab dinner?”
“Oh. Well... I appreciate the dinner invitation, but I think I should head back right away. Things seem like they’re about to get busy.”
After the match against Mainz ended, Jürgen Klopp declined the dinner invitation and headed straight back to Mainz.
After all, eating dinner when your team had just lost would have been awkward.
Well, I hadn’t really expected him to say yes when I invited him to dinner either.
When you run into an old acquaintance after a long time, “let’s grab a meal sometime” is just a casual greeting, isn’t it?
If Jürgen had accepted my offer, I would’ve been the one to panic.
Anyway.
The day after the match against Mainz ended,
the players carried out recovery training at Union Berlin’s training ground, Eisen und Blut, with cheerful expressions.
I nodded as I watched the players train.
Among the players doing recovery training, the medical staff were checking their physical condition.
Personally, it felt like a season where the huge sums I’d spent on the medical staff had been worth it. They had helped prevent injuries before they happened.
Considering how competitive the second division was this season,
if key players had gotten injured midseason, promotion would have been difficult, let alone winning the title.
It was just my personal opinion, but after such massive investment in the medical team, I took pride in having one of the best medical teams in Europe.
“Bringing in injury-prone players doesn’t sound so bad either.”
Arjen Robben, for example, had dazzling movement, but wasn’t he made of glass these days? If I approached him while introducing our medical team, maybe I could sign him.
‘...But if the other side is Real Madrid or Bayern Munich, would I even be able to sign him?’
Anyway.
After winning against Mainz and safely getting past the crisis, I started thinking more seriously about next season.
To survive in the top flight next season, we’d need reinforcements in the squad and on defense.
‘...But my goal from the start wasn’t just staying up next season; it was reaching European competition.’
I was having scouts recommend players for next season.
Finding every player myself from start to finish would have been the surest method, but unfortunately the job of a manager was incredibly busy.
I realized that taking recommendations from scouts and then filtering them once more myself was the most efficient option.
And maybe because Union Berlin had become fairly well-known by now?
Player agents were even approaching Union Berlin first.
Well... they weren’t famous enough players for me to know them.
Now that Union Berlin’s promotion to the top division seemed certain, there were a lot of speculative offers being thrown our way.
At any rate.
My younger brother and I decided to spend money aggressively next season.
UEFA’s Financial Fair Play, the so-called FFP, had not yet been enacted.
If we were going to spend, we had to do it fast now.
Well... still, I wasn’t confident I could go on a spending spree like Chelsea or Manchester City. Unlike them, who chased famous stars, my goal was to collect as many promising youngsters as possible.
‘Raphaël Varane, Virgil van Dijk, Hakan Çalhanoğlu, Neymar, Robertson, Thiago Silva, Kompany, Dante, Gareth Bale, Modrić, and who else was there? Ah. Come to think of it, I should bring Shinji Kagawa in too.’
And once this season ended, I was planning to tour Northeast Asia during the preseason and sweep up Asian football prospects.
‘Well. Before that, I’d have to make Union Berlin’s promotion to the top division official first.’
After that, time continued to pass quickly.
Union Berlin, having regained their confidence, kept piling up wins every match.
[League Round 28: Can Union Berlin secure promotion at home?]
Before long, the match that could confirm our place in the top division had arrived.
Union Berlin’s temporary home stadium was packed with people.
Fans came to the stadium carrying photos of family members and friends who had passed away before they could see their beloved team’s promotion to the top division.
***
‘Grandpa, unlike those Dynamo bastards, we’re going up to the Bundesliga.’
Union Berlin fan Hermann Löw, who had visited the stadium, felt his chest swell and wiped away tears before he knew it.
In both of his hands, he held a photo of his grandfather, who used to hold his hand and bring him to watch Union Berlin matches when he was a child.
Just two years ago, the club had been forced to worry about dissolution because of a financial crisis, yet now it stood on the brink of promotion to the Bundesliga for the first time in its history.
Not only was the stadium packed, but the area around it was overflowing with fans as well.
“Um, I’m really sorry, but I couldn’t get a ticket. Could you at least take this photo into the stadium for me? It’s my father, and I really want to show him our team getting promoted to the first division.”
“Oh. Of course.”
Some fans who hadn’t managed to get tickets handed the photos of their family and friends they had brought to fans going into the stadium.
“Hey, go in and watch the game with your father.”
Some fans even handed their own tickets over to the fans who had left photos behind.
- Ha. Fucking hell, I just gave my ticket to an old lady who came with a photo of her husband. I just couldn’t refuse. I spent a shit ton on plane fare just to watch this match too. Guess I’ll just go to a pub nearby and watch the game there.
And among the fans who gave away their tickets were some who had come from Korea.
“Chan~~~hyeok!!”
The fans who entered the stadium called out the name of the young coach who had made all these miracles happen.
The boy who had once seemed not just young but almost childlike had, before anyone knew it, become an adult.
But in the eyes of Union Berlin’s fans, he still looked like that young boy.
They remembered him playing as the acting head coach, scoring the opening goal, and leading the team to victory.
This season, Thomas Tuchel, who had led Union Berlin, resigned from his managerial post, and a crisis arrived.
Union Berlin fans thought Park Chan-hyeok would follow Thomas Tuchel as well.
But Park Chan-hyeok, whom everyone thought would leave the team with Tuchel, stayed and took over the manager’s job.
And as soon as the season began, Park Chan-hyeok shattered every prediction the experts had made.
He had united the team in a way no one had anticipated.
At the time, the media had mocked Park Chan-hyeok for sending the players to a construction site,
Union Berlin’s fans believed in Park Chan-hyeok and the players and waited.
After all, the people who had watched the Union Berlin players most closely and for the longest time were not the media, but the fans.
“Yannick!! Keep the promise you made at the construction site! The one where you said you’d become our legend!!”
Hermann Löw still remembered the memories of talking with the Union Berlin players back then. It was perhaps a precious memory he would never forget for the rest of his life.
There was still a long time left before kickoff.
“Dem Morgengrauen entgegen, ziehn wir gegen den Wind. (Toward the dawn, we march against the wind.)”
All of Union Berlin’s fans stood up and began singing the team chant.
The fire burning in their chests made it impossible to sit still.
“Wir werden alles zerlegen, bis wir Deutscher Meister sind. (We will tear everything apart until we become German champions.)”
The fans’ passion was passed straight on to the players warming up on the pitch.
The Freiburg players’ faces stiffened, while the Union Berlin players became utterly serious.
“Let’s win. No matter what happens, we have to win today.”
Union Berlin captain Yannick Poit gathered the players and made a brief declaration.
“Eisen!!!”
“Union!!”
Unlike usual, the players nodded with serious expressions, devoid of any playfulness.
And a moment later,
“FC Union Du sollst leuchten, wie der hellste Heiligenschein. (FC Union, you shall shine like the brightest halo.)”
With the referee’s whistle, the match began.
Then, black-and-white photos were raised all over the stadium.
They were photos of family, friends, and comrades who had passed away before they could see Union Berlin promoted to the top division.
“Und überall wird es schallen, FC Union unser Verein! (And everywhere it will resound, FC Union, our club!)”