Chapter 91
When I heard the news of Jürgen Klinsmann's appointment to Bayern Munich, at first I doubted the competence of Bayern Munich's board.
‘……Could this be my chance?’
But soon, I realized that a historic chance to win the league had arrived.
The purpose of a sports club is to win. It was only natural to get greedy for the title when the chance came.
‘If I get greedy and fail, I’m screwed….’
It was fine.
If I was going to have to spend the money someday anyway, it was better to invest it now.
That evening.
I immediately ran to my little sister's room.
“Hey. Park Jeong-ah.”
I burst open my little sister's door and went in.
“……Why.”
Park Jeong-ah, with deep irritation written all over her face, greeted me.
“Give me the money.”
I got straight to the point without any unnecessary explanation.
At first, she had seemed uncomfortable hearing that she was a regressor like me, but that discomfort quickly vanished over time and blood ties.
‘Maybe because we went through that misery together as kids, being chased by Korean reporters.’
Well. Looking back now, it was a kind of memory in its own way.
“……?”
In any case.
My little sister was clearly puzzled by my words, so I had no choice but to explain in detail.
Just how incompetent Jürgen Klinsmann was, and how good a chance it was for Union Berlin to lift the league trophy right now.
“So give me the money for that.”
“No.”
But even after my explanation, my little sister firmly rejected my proposal.
Apparently, spending money however she pleased without the shareholders' consent was impossible.
“Korean chairmen do whatever they want, though.”
“That’s Korea.”
Having been rejected by my little sister, I kept thinking about how to raise the transfer funds.
‘I guess I’ll have to talk to the club staff.’
And after the meeting, the result was.
The topic of stadium naming rights came up as a way to raise money.
‘Still, it’d be a shame to give up on an opportunity like this….’
Even though we had already backed down in the past after trying to sell the stadium naming rights and facing fan backlash, I couldn’t let go of my greed.
I decided to persuade Union Berlin’s fans so I could sell the stadium naming rights.
Union Berlin’s fans were a fairly conservative bunch who valued tradition highly.
With a solemn resolve, ready to have my head whacked by a cane, I opened the door.
But the reaction from the Union Berlin fans that followed was something I hadn’t expected.
“Let Chanhyeok do whatever he wants!”
“……?”
***
Right now, Union Berlin’s fans felt like they were flying.
Because the club had secured promotion to the Bundesliga for the first time in its history.
- My God, we’re a first-division team!
└ Union! Union! Union!
└ See ya, you Dynamo idiots! We’re going to the first division!
This was a monumental achievement that more than made up for the sorrow of a poor club that had repeatedly been relegated because of financial problems.
The fans knew very well that the club’s steady growth had been thanks to Park Chanhyeok.
They decided to fully support whatever the ‘master tactician’ Park Chanhyeok wanted to do, the man who had led the club to the top division for the first time in its history.
“……I still don’t really like it, though.”
Of course, it wasn’t as if they had no reservations about selling the stadium naming rights.
But once the coach himself showed up in person and tried to persuade them, even the fans who had opposed it decided to back Park Chanhyeok.
“Our Chanhyeok can do whatever he wants!”
***
After receiving the fans’ approval, I immediately set out to negotiate the sale of the naming rights.
Actually, selling club naming rights is a natural trend.
As time passes, football becomes driven by capital rather than romance.
In fact, future clubs would start selling anything and everything that could bring in money.
Even “that” Barcelona sold the naming rights to Camp Nou to Spotify.
Well. Barcelona’s case was unavoidable because its financial problems were severe.
‘Either way, they sold it, right?’
Well. This was a natural result of capital entering football.
You couldn’t forcibly stop the flow of history.
And...
That said, Union Berlin was objectively quite lucky.
Generally, even if a club wants to sell its stadium naming rights, there aren’t many companies willing to buy them.
They’re ridiculously expensive, and they get less exposure than the main shirt sponsor, so the promotional payoff is poor compared to the money invested.
At the very least, only clubs as big as Bayern Munich can usually sell them.
‘Didn’t Tottenham pull a whole desperate stunt just to sell their naming rights too?’
Even Tottenham Hotspur, which had grown into a “sort of” big club by reaching the Champions League final, had to work hard to sell its stadium naming rights.
‘We’re honestly at the level where it’d be lucky if it sold at all.’
Union Berlin had only just come up from the second division.
Naturally, there had to be a risk of relegation.
Recalling the time I’d had to sell the home stadium’s “bricks” to raise construction funds, I started personally visiting Korean conglomerates as well as German companies to sell the naming rights to Union Berlin’s home ground, Stadion An der Alten Försterei, in order to get the highest possible price.
Selling off the naming rights to a stadium that hadn’t even been built yet made me look like a scammer... no, a great merchant.
In any case.
Overall, the Korean conglomerate’s terms were better.
While Union Berlin was just an average club in Germany, it had a certain symbolic value in Korea and across Asia.
Just as the stadium naming rights were about to be handed over to the Korean conglomerate,
[Japanese conglomerate Rakuten shows interest in Union Berlin’s stadium naming rights. ]
An unexpected Japanese conglomerate entered the race.
***
As the club’s naming-rights contract negotiations were about to be finalized with GL Group,
Japanese companies, including Rakuten, expressed interest in Union Berlin’s stadium naming rights.
‘……I kind of want to stir up nationalist sentiment between the two countries here, but, huh, I shouldn’t mess around with this, should I?’
A few tricks, and the price of the club’s naming rights would probably skyrocket.
But unfortunately, if you touched nationalism the wrong way, it was not something you could handle.
I decided to leave all the negotiations to the club and focus on preparing for next season.
Keeping an eye on it any longer felt like I might end up playing with fire without even realizing it.
***
[Willem II prospect Virgil van Dijk joins Union Berlin.]
[Union Berlin signs only unproven big-league players.]
[An anonymous first-division chairman, ‘Park Chanhyeok will experience a painful failure this season.’]
[Experts criticize Union Berlin’s transfer market. “The first division and the second division are different. Union Berlin is likely to collapse around midseason or later….”]
[Bild, subtly criticizing Park Chanhyeok as ‘a typical rookie manager’s mistake.’ ]
***
Virgil van Dijk moved to Union Berlin’s youth team.
The club’s youth facilities and the training facilities we would add later seemed to help persuade him.
I put Virgil van Dijk in the youth team rather than the first team.
Right away, I would have liked to put him in the first team, but since stability was key in that position, he needed a bit of polishing in the youth ranks first.
‘For now... learning the language comes first.’
I slowly looked around the training ground.
Union Berlin’s Eisen und Blut training ground was completely reborn after a massive renovation.
For reference, the youth system was the same. We borrowed Spain’s youth system.
After discovering the cheat-code-like Scout ability, the second thing I did was study Spain’s youth system.
For reference, the first was just watching people. It was so fascinating to see attributes pop up that I lost track of time.
In any case.
Seeing Leon Han and Virgil van Dijk diligently training in the youth team was incredibly reassuring.
Just seeing those two made Union Berlin’s future feel secure.
That day.
I watched Leon Han play in a youth-team match.
He was the first 6-star potential player I had discovered.
Leon Han, who had been about to give up football because of racism, unleashed his potential and rapidly moved up the youth levels.
‘If he learned from Modric, he’d probably grow even faster.’
I asked the board to sign Modric. Since I’d raised the money by selling the naming rights, I figured it was fine to spend aggressively.
A few days after that.
Thanks to the persistent persuasion of Croatian-born Ivan Petrovic, Union Berlin succeeded in signing Luka Modric.
***
The players who had finalized their transfers began joining Union Berlin one by one.
Union Berlin succeeded in signing most of the players it had targeted.
After signing Luka Modric, I even reached out to test the waters with Gareth Bale as well.
But Tottenham, still furious over the Modric transfer, flatly rejected me.
‘…Well. Next season is the legendary guaranteed-loss season anyway. We can target him after that.’
Anyway, the player Union Berlin was currently devoting its efforts to was Thiago Silva.
[Union Berlin offers Fluminense FC 15M in transfer fee.]
[AC Milan to give up on Thiago Silva over the higher transfer fee?]
With the Northeast Asia preseason schedule drawing near.
Now we had to move quickly to wrap up the transfer negotiations.
‘By the way, our squad is too young.’
I wonder if Cao Cao felt this way when it came to talent.
No matter how many times I looked at the roster, I still felt like something was lacking.
Once the defense was sorted out, it became obvious how ridiculously young the squad was.
‘If only we had one veteran defender to lead the back line….’
Just then, as I kept mulling it over.
[Cafu, a beautiful farewell to AC Milan.]
What caught my eye was...
Brazil’s legendary right-back Cafu, who had announced his retirement from AC Milan last season.