Shooting Trajectory is Visible - Chapter 283



Only Noblemtl

Episode 283: Team Minwoo without Minwoo

After completing the inauguration ceremony in Korea, we immediately entered the western United States for the World Cup and final evaluation matches.

More specifically, in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles, California, is the city most familiar and closest to Korea among the many cities in the United States.

First of all, the population of Korean residents living here is the largest in the world outside of the mainland.

Now, Chan-Ho Park, who is famous for TMI, entered the major league and had his prime in Los Angeles, and Hyun-Jin Ryu, who has the familiar nickname of Ryu-Ttung, also played here.

“If you go to Naseong, send me a letter~”

I hummed that as I entered Los Angeles, LA, and looked out at the view. Then, Eugene Ho, who was nearby, blinked for a moment and asked.

“How do you know that song? It came out before I was born.”

“They played the song ‘Suspicious Girl’ at school a while back. That’s when I knew.”

“…okay?”

“If you go to Sim Eun-kyung’s Naseong later, listen to it. It’s a remake, but it’s nice to listen to.”

Eugene Ho nods his head with an expression that says he can see all the funny guys.

And we rode the national team bus provided by Daehyun for quite some time. In fact, since there were so many Koreans in this city, it was chaos from the moment we arrived.

I exaggerated a little and thought we had come to another city in Korea. I didn’t know they would welcome us so well.

So the bus carrying the national team moved to the place that would become our base camp.

I heard there were three camp candidates, and there was quite a bit of conflict of opinion before they narrowed it down to one.

How did you know? When you’re next to Yoo Jin-ho, you can’t help but know, even if you don’t want to hear it… .

“I originally planned to set up camp at a place called the Ritz-Carlton San Francisco. I even had my schedule set up. I really like it there. The facilities are great, but the accessibility is incredible. It’s right between LA and Seattle, so it’s really easy to get around. The climate is also great.”

“Yes, yes.”

“But didn’t those Yankee kids know right away and go for it? How long did it take for us to set up a base camp there… … Ugh. Anyway, it’s good to be the host country. You can tell the country that wants to do it first to leave.”

Yoo Jin-ho muttered as if he was very sorry. It was a rather interesting story to just listen to with one ear and let it go, so I asked him a question.

“It’s a very large hotel anyway, so why can’t we share a base camp? It’s unlikely we’ll ever meet.”

“Our Minwoo only plays soccer and doesn’t know anything about administrative work? Huh?”

Yoo Jin-ho looks at me as if I find it cute or funny. As I look at him, I am reminded of the old days. When I was a rookie who knew nothing about soccer. When I was just getting used to the high school soccer team with the system on my back.

I crossed my arms and asked curtly.

“Then why doesn’t it work?”

“Hey, there’s something called privacy. There’s also security. You have to fight in the same group, but share a base camp. How uncomfortable is that for both of you? Tactics can leak out. In the first place, FIFA should have prevented that from happening.”

“Oh… .”

If you think about it, that’s true. On the surface, soccer is just a game between 11 people, but if you look at it more broadly, there are a lot of people involved in the game.

From coaches to staff in charge of various tasks, to chefs and doctors who cater to the players’ tastes.

“So where are we going? With one of the original candidates gone, aren’t there two left?”

“You really don’t know anything? Didn’t you hear?”

“No, I heard it but I forgot. As for me, I only need to block the ball, so I’m one person. I don’t have the space to remember things like that.”

Eugene Ho’s expression of bewilderment. And he answers briefly.

“You’re going to a really good place, you punk.”

“Oh. You’re not going to tell me?”

“Yeah. I was really hurt.”

And then Yoo Jin-ho puts on his earphones as if he really doesn’t want to say anything. Anyway, I told you he’s narrow-minded.

Our base camp, as we later learned, was the Fairmont Century Plaza. It was a very famous place in the area. Eugene Ho’s words were not wrong.

Well, it’s a camp where the national team of a country stays, so there’s no way they would assign them to a bad place.

Also, our training facility was set to be Dignity Health Sports Park. It is the home stadium of the US professional soccer team LA Galaxy, and it was a perfect place for us to train.

‘And the final private evaluation match will be held here?’

Fortunately, we didn’t have to travel far for the friendly matches. We played all three group matches here in California, but Honduras, who were playing against us, were not there.

If we had to be specific, it was similar to Honduras asking for an evaluation match against us.

If it weren’t for that, we would have gone to another region and returned after the evaluation match without even having time to adjust here.

That was a bad thing.

Fortunately, the Football Association did a good job and that didn’t happen.

“Alright! We’ve arrived! Let’s get off!”

And we moved in unison according to Yoo Jin-ho’s shouts. We got off the bus, unloaded our luggage… .

“Welcome to LA, Team Korea.”

As I was trying to enter the hotel, a person who appeared to be the CEO appeared in a suit and greeted me like this.

And then the hotel staff started to help us in earnest, and looking at them, I wondered if I should give them a ‘tip’.

‘In America, they say you should tip people who serve you, no matter what…’

I’ve heard that the problem is so tiring that even ordering at a kiosk requires a tip.

As I was just staring blankly because I didn’t know, Yoo Jin-ho shouted.

“Hey! You punks! What are you doing? Hurry up and let’s rest!”

“yes~”

Time flew by as I unpacked and sorted things out. And I decided to just finish work that day without doing any training or anything.

Well, I guess it’s necessary to take a day or so to get rid of the aftereffects.

* * *

A day after arriving at base camp, we began full-scale training. It was no different from the training we had done in Korea.

We do recovery training, tactical training, individual training… .

As I was doing that, time passed and the time for the final evaluation arrived.

While some players who were virtually certain to join the national team (including me) didn’t seem to have any particular thoughts, the players who were on the fence were different.

The will and spirit were like burning firewood.

In particular, what coach Leon said before the match against Honduras set their hearts on fire.

“In this match against Honduras, some of the starting players, such as Son Heung-min, Kim Min-woo, and Kim Jun-young, will not be playing. Instead, we will give the opportunity to the substitutes, and after checking the performance in the last evaluation match, we will select the players who will board the national team.”

The voice of a businesslike interpreter.

I nodded my head in agreement, but the atmosphere in the national team was filled with a rather solemn mood.

Yeah, that’s right. Some of the players here have to go home.

It seems too cruel to ask them to return to Korea after coming all this way, but Leon did not hesitate to do such cruel things in order to make the players compete until the end.

And that’s the nature of the world of professional sports.

If you don’t have the skills, you can’t even play on the field. Your salary will gradually decrease, and if you lose your value as a candidate, you will be mercilessly released. That was the professional world.

After weeding out the very last of the best, we will take the best and strongest force that South Korea can produce to the World Cup. Regardless of personal feelings, if we look at it objectively, this was the right thing to do.

‘Soon, someone will return home shedding tears of blood… .’

Or, they could set the mood like this and instead of sending him back to Korea, they could take him with them as a reserve candidate.

Why, there’s something like that. Something like a resource you carry around in case of an unexpected injury. … Wouldn’t it be too affectionate to call it a potion?

Anyway, after Leon’s announcement, the players were sharply divided.

Players who have already been confirmed to board. Including me, Kim Jun-young, Son Heung-min, Lee Kang-im, Hwang Hee-cheon, etc.

And all the other players. Of course, coach Leon didn’t make any rash decisions about who would be on board. If I had to mention them, it would be me and Son Heung-min. No one else was confirmed.

‘If I do this and drop Hongmin hyung with a crack…’

I briefly imagined it, and just imagining it was terrifying. I don’t think I’d have the courage to make that decision, but if I did that, wouldn’t the team atmosphere be the worst?

Since coming to the U.S., the players had been actively participating in training, but from then on, they were truly in a do-or-die state of mind.

Even when I trained once, I did it desperately and worked so hard that the coaches were worried about injuries and told me to take it easy.

‘Isn’t this almost worse than when I first started in Hanover?’

I worked really hard back then, but the players here now were doing it because they were possessed by evil. They had poison in their eyes.

What’s the point of comparing it to back then? Back then I was looking forward to a year, and now here it’s going to be decided in a week at most… .

Because I understand their feelings to some extent, I went back to Hanover and trained hard, even though it was training to suit the atmosphere.

And finally, the day of the private evaluation match arrived.

This match against Honduras will be held at Dignity Health Sports Park, which we use as our training facility.

‘This is an unofficial evaluation match in a large stadium with no one there.’

Other countries will probably be having unofficial evaluation matches by now. It’s the last match before the World Cup. To put it simply, it’s like the last mock test before the CSAT.

As previously announced, Son Heung-min and I did not play in the match.

It wasn’t just the two of us.

Some players who were certain to participate in the World Cup also sat on the bench.

First of all, Kim Jun-young did that, and so did Lee Kang-im.

However, not all players sat on the bench, and players like Hwang Hee-cheon, Kim Min-je, and Lee Ja-seong played.

So I sat on the bench and watched the game with my arms crossed.

‘It’s intense.’

It was intense. I was impressed by the game. It was not a good thing that a country ranked 18th in the FIFA rankings was competing against a country ranked 82nd. Even though many of the main players were missing, this was… … wow.

‘Even if we don’t do well in the first half, we should at least score one goal. Or at least the content should be good so that there are a lot of effective shots.’

Honduras seemed to admit that they were weaker than Korea and sat down. It was a tactic of defending first and then counterattacking, which is a favorite of weaker teams.

If it were the previous best 11, they would have laughed and said, “Go ahead and give it a try,” and kept beating him until a goal was scored, but that wasn’t the case now.

‘First of all, the attack is too frustrating.’

With Kim Jun-young, Son Heung-min, and even Lee Kang-im missing, the offense felt like watching a different team. What should I say about this? This is definitely… .

‘It feels like I’m looking at the Korea of ​​the past.’

Even if it’s not as good as the Klinsgel era, the offensive development is not smooth and the shooting is not satisfactory.

The lack of depth that some media outlets have consistently referred to as Korea’s weakness was clearly revealed in today’s game.

There were no injuries during that time and we only played with the best 11, so I didn’t notice, but with some of the starters out, our performance suddenly got worse.

‘What’s even more creepy is that this is a 1.5-gun unit…’

I would understand if everyone was in the second army… … Hmm.

In a match without spectators, with shouting and shouting going on between the players, it was shockingly Honduras who scored the first goal.

Honduras showed a typical counterattack after a defensive penalty.

They took away Korea’s ball possession by pressuring them, then counterattacked by raising the line. They toyed with the Korean defense with 2-on-1 passes and even scored a goal.

It was a point loss scene that even the world’s best Kim Min-je could not do anything about.

We, sitting on the bench, were all silent at the loss of that goal.

‘Fuck.’

Hey, hey, if one of the best 11 gets injured, it’ll be a big problem, right?

Kim Jun-young also tilted his head for a moment, as if he had come out of some grand illusion, and then he sat right next to me and whispered.

“Brother. After looking into it, I realized that we weren’t strong.”

“Oh, okay.”

“It was just a few people, led by my brother, grabbing me by the scruff of the neck and dragging me away… ”

“… … .”

This is so true I am speechless.

Kim Jun-young added one more word to that.

“Shall I be honest with you? If our team lost just one hyung, the World Cup would be a mess. You know that, hyung. The Korean team without Kim Min-woo is different from the team with him in terms of organizational skills.”

The South Korean national team is clearly strong.

But certain conditions had to be met.

First, prerequisite number one.

Kim Min-woo must be selected to start… .

“You can see it because it’s there or not, hyung. Even if there’s only a little bit of crisis, the defense… … Ahem.”

Yes. In that kind of situation, even if the defense was breached, I would have blocked it. If I had been there, the defender’s role in that situation would have been only one thing. Rather than actively blocking it, it would have been to narrow the shooting angle.

But the goalkeeper now is not me. The striker now is not Kim Jun-young. So the national team has regressed to the national team we knew back then… … .