Shooting Trajectory is Visible - Chapter 258



Only Noblemtl

Episode 258 Romance

[… That’s why we brought Kim in. Some people are criticizing the board for bringing Kim in at too high a salary, but I think we brought him in at a very reasonable price.]

Richard Johnson reviewed Giovanni’s interview with a satisfied expression. Giovanni looked unusually excited.

[Today’s game, the players’ form was really bad. How do you plan to improve in the future?]

[I can’t control the players’ condition. That’s up to each individual player. However, I would like to say something to the fans… … Nevertheless, the fact is that Kim is guarding our goal.]

It was a very satisfying interview for the captain. The performance was obviously a mess, but Richard Johnson was quite satisfied.

“It was a match that would have been a miserable defeat if we hadn’t recruited Kim. But who actively recruited Kim?”

Ahahaha.

Richard smiled broadly and watched the enemy commander’s interview.

[Although we lost the game, Tottenham played well. I am proud of the players.]

[Today’s game was really close to victory. In the end, Kim defended his record again. Aren’t you disappointed?]

[… I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel sorry. But we played our best. We did everything we could. It’s just that Kim was a little bit ahead of our best.]

“Ahahahaha!”

The Manchester United board of directors are all crazy for bringing in a goalkeeper who hasn’t even been on the team for a few years with a weekly salary of 1 billion won! … That was a truckload of people shouting.

But now those guys are nowhere to be seen.

The enemy general also admits it. It’s not that they failed to beat Manchester United, it’s that they failed to beat Kim.

“It was the best decision I ever made.”

Richard hugged himself as if he was so proud. It was hideous… .

[Today, Son and Kim’s match was really intense. Son could have broken Kim’s clean sheet if he had just stretched his foot into the empty goal after beating Kim. But Kim grabbed his ankle and ended up not scoring. Don’t you think that’s unfair?]

The following is an interview with Son. Son conducted the interview skillfully, as expected of a veteran.

[I don’t think Kim did it on purpose. It was a normal collision, and if it was normal, I would have scored the penalty kick. It’s just that the opponent was Kim, so I missed it.]

Richard Johnson, who had been watching the interview for a while, sat down in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. And he said to himself,

“It looks like they’re going to score, so they’re deliberately giving a penalty kick to prevent a goal?”

Crazy guy. He’s not an ordinary crazy guy. How can he come up with such an idea? How confident must he be in his defense?

Manchester United have now won the EFL Cup. The remaining three trophies for us are the FA Cup, the Premier League and the Europa League.

Richard had no intention of missing a single one.

The idea was to lift all the cups and become the four-crown champion.

“Damn. If we had just finished in the top four last season, we would have won the Champions League….”

What a pity.

Well, that’s okay.

In fact, it’s just that time has been pushed back, but with Kim, the Big Ears belong to Man U. If we get into the Champions League next season, no club will be able to stop us.

“Real Madrid boasted of having set an unbreakable record by winning the Champions League three times in a row, but now it is time for that record to be broken.”

Real Madrid has won three big awards in 2016, 2017, and 2018.

Real Madrid was a dream club even before, but after winning three consecutive titles, they rose to the ranks of the best clubs in the world.

Manchester United, who are just beginning to stretch their legs after a long period of darkness, will surely be like that soon.

Like Real Madrid.

No, it will surpass Real Madrid’s record and become the one and only ‘dream club’.

Then, all the best players in the world will want to play for Manchester United, and the virtuous cycle will continue, creating new history as well as old glory.

The first step is, of course, to catch Kim.

“The contract period is still ample, but I really need to do well in renewing the contract.”

Negotiating a new contract with Kim will be a very tiring and dizzying negotiation. The agency there is really terrible.

If you don’t like it even a little bit, they’ll threaten to take you to another club. Just thinking about it makes me sick.

“…still.”

Because he is a player worthy of that.

Richard smiled and did some stretching.

“By the way, how far will South Korea go in this World Cup with players like that?”

Whether it’s the World Cup or something else, there are goalkeepers who don’t score, so in the end, won’t Kim grab them by the scruff of the neck and help them win?

… Wait. So this is the first time in World Cup history that an Asian team will win the title?

“The goalkeeper’s performance lifts the World Cup….”

A truly one-of-a-kind sports star will be born in the world. He is already a star, but if he continues to perform like he did in the World Cup and wins the trophy…

“Syndrome.”

Kim Min-woo’s name will be imprinted all over the world, and a Kim Min-woo syndrome may even be born.

And that will have a positive impact on our club too.

“Okay, good. Very good… .”

Richard smiled brightly and promised that if Korea ever makes it to the World Cup finals, he would definitely go see it.

* * *

According to Kim Shin-a, Korea is once again in an uproar because of the match between Manchester United and Tottenham.

How many times has this become a mess?

Kim Shin-ah’s words sometimes felt completely believable, but at other times, I felt like they were going overboard.

It’s like he’s the only one excited, but he’s making it seem like the whole world is excited.

[Kim Shin-ah: Wow, you don’t believe me?]

[Kim Shin-ah: Is this really chaos?]

[Kim Min-woo: Season 23 chaos, okay;;]

[Kim Shin-ah: If a Korean had scored Kim Min-woo’s first goal, there would be nothing more romantic than that.

[Kim Min-woo: ?? When did you ever hope that I wouldn’t concede a point?]

[Kim Shin-ah: If there was romance, I would have made fun of it]

[Kim Shin-ah: But if the only goal we conceded was to Son Heung-min, wouldn’t that be romantic?]

That’s… that’s right.

After finishing my KakaoTalk conversation with Kim Shin-ah, I took a quick look around. There was nothing around except for grass, a goal post, and a few buildings.

“It’s desolate.”

After the fierce match against Tottenham, I immediately got on a plane and flew to Poland for an evaluation match.

This evaluation match was a European expedition following the previous expedition to Turkey (which was actually a match in a neutral country).

It was also evidence that the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation was quite excited about this World Cup.

If things were as they were, they would have been busy inviting them to Korea and earning money for the tickets, but after Turkey, they are now going on an expedition to Europe.

The schedule was as follows: play in Poland, then travel to the Netherlands for a match. How did we get there? By bus. Damn.

“Eww! It’s dazzling!”

I turned my head at the unexpected sound.

It was Lee Kang-im.

This is the base camp where we will stay and train. I was one of the first players to arrive, so I looked around for a while, and it looks like other players have arrived too.

“Bit Minwoo! You were crazy during the match against Tottenham? Did you watch YouTube or Instagram? People are really looking forward to the World Cup!”

“Oh really?”

I don’t really look at the community.

Kim Shin-ah told me everything in the first place.

In a way, I was looking at people’s reactions through the purifying filter of Kim Shin-ah.

“You’re not saying you won’t be able to go to the World Cup like this, right? No. You’re doing well on the national team too. You don’t have any ups and downs, right?”

“Yeah, well….”

That’s right.

Still, I try not to be arrogant.

Because it is a tournament, it is different from a league.

One mistake can cause a tower you’ve worked so hard to build to collapse.

‘Of course, I haven’t made a single big mistake since my debut.’

Following the Bundesliga, the Premier League was also on the verge of being settled.

If I win all the competitions I can win this season, the only trophies left for me are the Champions League trophy, which is called the Big Ear, and the World Cup trophy that every player dreams of.

‘Even the world’s Messi was able to lift the trophy in his final years as a player. Can I do it?’

Even Messi said his country is Argentina, but I am from Korea.

A country on the periphery of football. A country that has only made it to the round of 16 in the World Cup in 2010, the round of 16 in 2022, and the semifinals in the distant future.

‘It’s a much more thorny path compared to Messi. But.’

If we can just overcome the huge obstacles that lie ahead and lift the World Cup… … .

‘Great glory awaits.’

The timing was right.

Because the current Republic of Korea is evaluated as a golden generation that will never come back even if I am excluded.

At the same time, there are players from Tottenham, Wolverhampton, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, and Manchester United playing together, as well as many other European teams.

Also, the K-League has been enjoying a continuous upward trend since the Qatar World Cup, and one of the reasons for this is good performance.

Improved K-League players and numerous European players.

If you add me to that… … can this really work?

“Let’s win this time. Isn’t this almost the first time that Korea has entered the top 10 of the FIFA rankings?”

“… Oh. Can you do it?”

“If only you would help me, hyung.”

Lee Kang-im burst out laughing at my words. Kim Jun-young, who was walking from afar, also raised his hand and shouted.

“I will help you too, brother!”

“Yeah, yeah… .”

My personal career is a career, but how romantic would it be if Son Heung-min, like Lionel Messi, lifted a World Cup at the end of his career?

Even unlike Messi… … he’s unrelated. Hehe.

‘A person who has been called an indifferent person wins a World Cup at the end of his career? What could be more romantic than that?’

In my opinion, that was truly romantic. My clean sheet was precious, so I kept it.

* * *

The Polish national soccer team, ahead of the A match, had a harmonious yet somewhat tense atmosphere.

The national team’s coach, Michał Probić, seemed to be quite pleased with the atmosphere.

Korea was a very strong team for Poland to face, and since they were due to face Australia in the World Cup group stage, it was also a good matchup.

‘Even if our races are different, our strengths are similar.’

They were even stronger opponents. If they win against Korea, it would be the icing on the cake, but even if they can’t win, if they show a decent performance, they won’t have to pack their bags and come back as soon as they go to the US.

“Everyone. Attention for a moment.”

Coach Mihau greeted the players briefly and talked about the upcoming matches.

“As you all know, the opponent we’re going to play against this time is a very strong team. You all know that, right? Son, Kim, Kim, Kim… .”

Triple Kim. Some players giggled.

“Not only the players, but also the recent performance of the country is amazing. Korea has not lost a recent A-match. What about the countries they are playing against?”

The coach showed the players what he had prepared in advance. It was Korea’s recent A-match record. Most of them were wins. Or draws. The teams they faced were all in the top 20 of the FIFA rankings.

“I don’t know about the past, but soccer has become more leveled now. When it comes to teams that advance to the World Cup, there are no overwhelmingly weak teams, nor overwhelmingly strong teams. But Korea in particular… … .”

It was an unknown country to European countries.

It doesn’t mean I don’t know Korea.

This means that the power has increased so much compared to before that it is impossible to tell just how strong the team is.

Coach Michał gave a long speech and then showed a video he had prepared separately to analyze the Korean team. It was a collection of Leonho’s A-match videos.

“… Okay. How is it? Compare. The difference between Korea with and without Kim is clear. It’s so obvious that you could almost think of them as different teams. The game that showed this well was the game against Ghana last January.”

The Polish players were soon absorbed in the coach’s words and videos. Certainly, the performance was so different that you could almost see them as different teams.

“Except for Kim’s injury and the World Cup exit, Korea will probably have a great record at this World Cup. And being able to play against such an opponent beforehand is a huge advantage.”

“The manager wants one thing from you. To play the best game we can. Also, the opposing goalkeeper won’t score, so it will probably be the toughest game we’ll ever experience.”

And the manager explained in detail what tactics he would use in that match.

Soon, the players got together and some of them started seriously discussing how far Korea would go in this World Cup and whether Korea would be able to win against countries like Brazil or France.

.

.

And on game day.

“Pierdolić (Fuck)… .”

Coach Michał Probić was shocked to see South Korea’s performance being much stronger than expected.

This kind of performance in front of the entire nation.

The opposing goalkeeper was, as expected, invincible.

There were several attempts, but not a single shot was allowed.

Not only that, the defenders were very organized, so there weren’t many opportunities.

And the attackers.

“Phew… .”

Overall, the air and defense balance was well maintained.

I thought there was a big difference with and without goalkeeper Kim, but I don’t think it would have been easy even without him.

Beep— beep— beep!

That’s how the game ends.

The score was 0 to 2. It was a complete defeat.

Lewandowski puts both hands on his head and tilts his head, a gesture that suggests he didn’t expect to be defeated like this.

‘2 to 0. 2 to 0…’

It was a score that brought back old memories.

In 2002, Poland lost to Korea with a score of 2-0, and now, 20 years later, they lost with the same score.

Even the director is the same as back then, from the Netherlands.

‘Korea, I’m really going to do something.’

The opposing coach came over to ask for a handshake. Michał Probić nodded and accepted the handshake.

Well, whatever.

I guess I should count myself vaccinated right before the World Cup.