TRCSSITE 05

Episode 5. Adaptation (1)

The coaching staff room was engulfed in silence for a while afterwards.

“……”

Instead of answering, I stared intently at Director Ham Gwang-chun’s face. His expression was generally quite blank. However, he hadn’t completely erased his emotions. You could sense significant shifts from subtle differences.

‘Curiosity. And anticipation.’

Why? Because I had lived for decades in his position too. Thinking from his perspective made the problem easy to solve.

‘If I were the youth team director and discovered the current Seo Jae-woo?’

I’d be the same. I’d be curious. Why did he make that play? What comes next is obvious. I’d want to test him. To see if he could really do it again.

“You’ll be on the roster for the next match too. You’ll most likely play. You can count on that. You can go now.”
“Understood.”

That was the end of the conversation.
I was satisfied.
I’d gotten a lot of information, hadn’t I?
I avoided being released.
And I needed to get a lot more from this director in the future.
Right now, I’m just a third-rate player with nothing to my name, but I have the experience of handling and observing countless players.
I should be able to pull off acting like a fragment of dazzling talent to deceive that director’s eyes.

“Good work, everyone! Let’s call it a day and rest up. Especially you starters, manage your stamina properly. That’s all.”

After finishing training, I headed home. Fortunately, Seo Jae-woo’s memories also contained information about where he lived. On the way, my head became tangled. There were still mountains of problems to solve.

‘First, this guy Seo Jae-woo’s family situation.’

This was really a headache. But there was no immediate solution. No matter how much I racked my brain, I couldn’t retrieve any related information. For now, the only way was to live as things came. The moment I entered the door lock password and stepped into the house…

“……”

A cold darkness greeted Seo Jae-woo.
No one was there.
There was only desolate silence.

‘This is too different from what I expected.’

Was he alone?
Should I consider this fortunate?
So many thoughts came to mind.
But my tired body wouldn’t leave me alone.
I washed up, lay down, and fell asleep as if I’d passed out.
My eyes opened on their own around 8 AM.
As soon as I got up, I searched the house. Thinking there might be some information to gain.
And the result I got was shocking.

‘He has no parents.’

His mother had passed away early.
His father also seemed to have left the world recently in an accident.
There was also other important information.

‘So Seo Jae-woo is the son of footballer Seo!’

Seo Eun-ho.
A fairly famous player who even had a stint in Spain’s first division.
Well, I remember him clearly.
I never coached him, but I faced him a few times as an opponent. He was good.

‘A winger who frequently created cracking plays with his excellent physical abilities and individual skills.’

His finishing was a bit disappointing, but his on-the-ball and off-the-ball movements were both good—a real headache. However, his active period was somewhat short.
He returned to the domestic league after getting injured in the middle of his second year.
Right.
That’s enough to know for now.
I immediately left the house.
And headed to the training ground as my body remembered.
Even though I left late, there weren’t many players at the training ground.

“Good morning! What’s the occasion? You showing up for morning training.”

Isn’t training supposed to be from the morning originally?
It felt like my common sense was crumbling.

“Is this all the people here?”
“Most of the guys are at school.”

Ah, right.
This body is still young.
Most of the players were students. It’s a U-18 team after all.
The few players here were the ones going all-in on football.
And it seemed I was also a member of the ‘Morning Family’.

“You haven’t been showing up since then, have you changed your mind again?”

Since then?
Just what happened ‘that day’?
Seo Jae-woo’s original memories aren’t intact, it’s so inconvenient. There’s too much I don’t know.
I need to look into this soon too.

“Well. Something like that.”

Anyway.
High-intensity exercise in the morning is prohibited, they said.
To handle the team schedule, most training sessions were concentrated in the late afternoon.
Then what do they do in the morning?

“We only do very light individual training. Sometimes the coaches hold tactical theory classes.”

Then there would be time left over.

“There are also many days when we just study. After all, most of the guys are preparing for the high school equivalency exam.”

I see.
I understand perfectly now.

‘It means I can spend a bit more time on football than the other kids.’

It’s quite an attractive environment.
Because I lacked so much.
I hurriedly prepared for training.
I grabbed my football boots and uniform, took a football, and settled in a corner of the field.

“Jae-woo! What are you doing over there? Today starts with the coach’s tactical theory class.”
“Isn’t it voluntary attendance anyway?”
“Well, yes, but……”
“Just consider me absent.”

I have no interest in tactical theory classes.
Just hearing the name of the lecture makes me sick.
Didn’t you say I never showed up anyway?
I had a much more important problem to solve.

‘Whether it’s a dream or reality, Seo Jae-woo’s life continues.’

I’m living a new football life with legs.
And although it’s currently at the youth level.
I am undoubtedly a active professional footballer.
So what should I do?

‘Football.’

I can’t be satisfied with just playing.
I need to be good. As a manager, I did my best and eventually reached the top, didn’t I?
Of course, whether I can become the best as a player is still unknown.
That’s something no one knows.
But I intend to do my best.

‘When I first challenged the path of a manager, I didn’t know either.’

You never know about life.
I became the best manager even after losing both legs.
I’ve already learned through experience.
The fact that nothing is more important than moving forward silently without defining the future.
Of course, I also know the next most important thing.

‘Setting the direction.’

This isn’t difficult either.
Fortunately, I have decades of experience directly managing the training sessions of top-notch players.
Naturally, individual training began.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I played around with the ball here and there.
It might look that way, but it was very difficult training for me.
Ball handling was something I had only done in my imagination.
I did roll it around here and there after being suddenly put into the game yesterday.
But the ball hardly moved as I intended.
I barely managed to earn my keep by maximizing my influence through movement alone and relying on luck for plays that somehow worked.

‘It’s a failing grade.’

It was pathetic to the point of being unworthy of the title ‘footballer’.
The reason it worked yesterday was solely thanks to the uniqueness of the style.
My current weaknesses are too clear. Because of that, the plays I can pull off are excessively limited.
The moment opposing players recognize that fact…

‘I’ll become useless quickly.’

I won’t be able to show any presence on the field at all.
My basic ball control and individual skill abilities were far too lacking.
So, from today, I planned to spend every moment with a football.
The goal is to become friends with the ball.
To be able to use it as naturally as a part of my own body.

‘The same goes for my legs.’

Pavababak–

When I occasionally got tired of playing with the ball, I used my legs to perform various movements.
This was also a process of me becoming familiar with my legs.
By the way, the perceived speed really is fast.
As I immersed myself in training, about two hours must have passed?

“What’s the occasion that you’re out? Have you turned over a new leaf? Huh?”

Head Coach Yoo Hae-wan had approached my side without me noticing.
I didn’t bother answering. I just bowed my head slightly and immersed myself in training again.
The original Seo Jae-woo was always rude to those around him. So it was comfortable. Everyone just let it slide.
Yoo Hae-wan also continued speaking as if it were nothing significant.

“What on earth are you doing to be sweating this much already? I’m sure they told you not to do intense exercise in the morning.”
“I was just playing with the ball.”
“Why?”
“I realized I’m not good at handling the ball.”

Yoo Hae-wan crossed his arms and fell into thought for a moment.

“Hmm. That’s certainly true.”

Yeah, it must have looked sloppy to anyone.
Huh. Thinking about it now is embarrassing.

“Show me.”
“Huh? Show what?”
“What you were doing. Show me once.”

A sudden one-on-one coaching session began.
But without showing any signs of panic, I immediately resumed training.
This was an opportunity. I could find my shortcomings from an external perspective and get feedback.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Kip-up. The motion of controlling a football in the air using various parts of the body.
After about three bounces, my posture began to break down.

Tap. Tap. Roll……

Around five times, both the ball and my backside fell to the ground.
I tried a couple more times, but.
I couldn’t touch the ball more than ten times in a single attempt.

“……”

The head coach’s silence seemed to carry a lot of meaning.
But I was confident.
Even this was a big improvement now.
At first, even three was difficult. No? I had no idea how to do even two. The future seemed utterly dark.
I picked up the ball and started juggling again.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Uh.
Wait.
This feels good?

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Good.

Breakthrough at 5 touches.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump!

Breakthrough at 10 touches!
Why is this working?

Tong. Degururur…..

The tenth touch was clumsy, ending the streak, but.
I definitely got the hang of it.
The head coach, who had seemed to lose interest, was now looking at me with a more intense gaze.
I tried juggling again.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump……

It didn’t break.
I got the feel for it.
On a roll, I tried using other body parts more freely.
First, the thighs.
Then a slightly stronger toss using the chest.
Anything more seemed difficult for now, but.

Thump. Tap. Thump.

I could continue juggling without stopping.
My attempts grew slightly bolder. I used various parts of my foot.
Left foot, right foot, instep, inside, outside.

Fight!

I kicked the ball high, then finished the juggle with a touch from my left heel.

“Not bad. At seventeen, you should be able to do at least that much.”

The head coach left those words and hurriedly left the spot.
Be that as it may.

‘It’s more fun than I thought?’

I continued the training. I’ll probably continue this training until the moment I finish my playing career.
Among the players I managed in my coaching days, there was a type I despised the most.
Namely, the players who neglected basic skills.
These guys often pulled off flashy plays. But they lacked tactical execution ability.
Because of that, the team suffered. It was common for someone to get overloaded and the balance to collapse.

‘No matter how important it is to utilize your strengths in the pro world.’

In the end, you need to have the minimum basic skills to utilize those strengths. That was my principle during my coaching days.
I couldn’t make an exception for myself either.

Yoo Hae-wan washed his face repeatedly at the bathroom sink.

‘What did I just see?’

Seo Jae-woo’s individual skills were clearly pathetic.
Today was the day he was conducting a tactical theory lecture for the academy dropout players.
He had come to the training ground earlier than anyone else to prepare for the class.
He happened to discover Seo Jae-wou, who had just started juggling training.
The kid’s juggling was pathetic. He felt it since the last practice match, but he looked like he had completely lost his feel for the ball.
But it changed.
In just two hours.

‘The kid has hatched.’

His basics were originally terrible.
But yesterday, they were arguably the worst.
That’s not strange.
For a kid who frequently skipped training, it’s possible for his lacking basics to fall to a level of non-existence.
But today, he showed up at the training ground in the morning, and did it.
And succeeded.
Even knowing the setup and conclusion, it was astonishing.

‘I thought if he struggled for just a week, he’d improve significantly.’

That was a misjudgment.
What’s a week?
Two hours was enough.
He already seemed to be at a similar level to the other kids around him.
The growth itself was surprising, but.

‘That kid, his eyes……’

They were different.
They had definitely changed.
The past Seo Jae-woo had eyes like a rotting fish.
But now?
They were clear.
With distinct focus and even a sense of desperation.
In fact, Yoo Hae-wan was seeing the kid concentrating on something for a long time for the first time today.

‘I’m looking forward to the next match.’

He heard it in the coaching staff meeting.
That Seo Jae-woo would be on the roster for the next match and was scheduled to play as a substitute.
At the time, it was a matter he accepted and moved on.
No matter how much Seo Jae-woo showed a changed appearance in the Blue-White match.
Honestly, it was hard to expect anything.
It was just one prospect changing his attitude towards football.

‘Did the director foresee it up to this point?’

But now, Seo Jae-woo has become a completely different player.
It all happened in just two days.
He couldn’t make sense of it at all.
He was curious about what kind of appearance that kid would show on the field next time.
That curiosity tormented Yoo Hae-wan all day.