Chapter 8: At Least for Now

Our team’s formation looked like this:

José and Carlos formed the two-man strike partnership up front.

Behind them, Antonio and Javier supported them in different roles.

And behind them stood me.

Daniel, Alberto, Juan, Roberto, and Sánchez formed the back five.

Iker guarded the goal.

Our opponents, Alcorcón, lined up in a 3-5-2 formation.

Unlike us, they put much more emphasis on the midfield.

Of course, if Daniel and Sánchez stepped into midfield and I pushed forward, the numbers would even out.

Alcorcón came out aggressively from the very beginning.

They exchanged passes and tried to push the ball into the final third.

Naturally, Antonio and I had a lot of work to do.

If you divided the pitch vertically, Antonio covered the left side while dropping deeper, and I covered the right.

The two of us ran all over the field protecting the back five.

Then our chance came.

I intercepted an opponent’s pass.

Boom!

I lifted the ball toward Javier.

A defender and Javier sprinted toward the dropping ball at the same time.

But Javier, one of the fastest players on our team, got there first.

Tap!

Javier slipped a pass to Carlos.

Carlos then laid it off to José.

José found himself completely open in front of goal.

He didn’t hesitate.

BOOOOM!!

The ball flew into the net.

13th minute of the first half! The opening goal belongs to Leganés’ number 9, José Rodríguez!

As the crowd erupted in celebration, José ran off to celebrate.

The rest of us chased after him, ruffling his hair and jumping on top of him.

While that was happening, Antonio ruffled my hair.

“Great interception, rookie.”

“I just got lucky.”

“Lucky? You were already moving before the pass came. Keep playing like that and you’ll earn a starting spot.”

Being praised felt good.

Antonio glanced at my face and added:

“Just don’t get cocky.”

“I know.”

Soon Alcorcón restarted the match.

After conceding, they adjusted their approach.

Instead of building through the center, they started sending early crosses from the wings.

That wasn’t really my concern.

Daniel and Sánchez handled those situations just fine.

Before the match, I’d thought I’d have to focus more on defending.

But once the game started, I spent much more energy on buildup play.

I had to connect Antonio and Javier.

When forward options were blocked, I had to provide a safe backward passing outlet and find new passing lanes.

Modern defensive midfielders really couldn’t survive by defending alone anymore.

***

26th Minute of the First Half

A pass from goalkeeper Iker eventually reached me after moving through several teammates.

I quickly scanned the field.

Passing lanes to both wings were blocked.

The central midfield passing lanes were blocked too.

At times like this, you had to force cracks into the opponent’s shape.

Tap! Tap!

I drove forward with the ball.

As Fran constantly reminded me, my speed was one of my strengths.

Even among the first team, I was probably above average.

I crossed the halfway line in an instant.

The moment I did, a passing lane opened between Alcorcón’s defenders.

It appeared because they were stepping up to pressure me.

Tap!

I fired a pass so hard it was almost a long ball.

The ball skimmed past an Alcorcón midfielder and rolled toward José.

“José!!”

Hearing my shout, José barely managed to control the pass.

An opposing midfielder rushed at him.

José instantly turned around and drove through the center.

Standing tackles came one after another, but he kept carrying the ball forward.

Watching him dribble past three players was incredible.

After beating them, José passed to Carlos.

The area around the penalty box was crowded with defenders.

Carlos didn’t care.

He shot immediately.

THUMP!

The ball sailed over the crossbar.

Still, I thought it was a good attempt.

“Nice one, rookie!”

Carlos gave me a thumbs-up.

As José ran back into position, he patted my shoulder.

Maybe things would change in the future.

But for now, every little compliment like this still made me happy.

***

45th Minute of the First Half

Daniel burst down the flank.

But before crossing midfield, he lost possession.

Antonio, who had dropped deeper, stretched out a leg and stopped the opponent’s advance.

The loose ball rolled toward me.

I thought about passing to Javier.

Then I changed my mind.

I wanted to take a long-range shot.

Tap! Tap!

I carried the ball forward.

As if they sensed my intentions, my teammates spread out into open spaces.

The defenders had no choice but to follow them.

Leaving players unmarked was dangerous.

If a pass reached them, anything could happen.

That gave me room to advance into the final third.

The moment I reached shooting range, I struck the ball.

BOOOOOOM!!!

The shot exploded off my foot and narrowly missed the goal.

I tilted my head back in frustration.

“It’s okay.”

“You’ll score the next one.”

“If every long shot went in, they wouldn’t be called long shots. Don’t worry about it.”

As we jogged back, my teammates each tossed out a few encouraging words.

Honestly, I wasn’t even that disappointed.

* * *

CD Leganés 3 : 1 AD Alcorcón

Clean performance, perfect victory! CD Leganés comfortably wins its first preseason match!

Complete control of midfield. A noticeably improved performance compared to last season!

Manager Carlos Rodríguez:
“We’re not focused solely on the result. We’ll use today’s match as nourishment for the season ahead. This season, I’ll make sure our fans can watch football with a little more peace of mind.”

Player Ratings

José Rodríguez (8.5):
Scored two goals and led the team to victory.

Fran López (6.3):
Still very raw and inexperienced.

• His physical ability is great though.
• Yeah, experience can be gained.
• True. Experience can be learned, but physical traits can’t be changed.

Pablo Ramírez (7.8):
As always, delivered a very stable performance.

• Sounds exactly like our captain. His ceiling and floor are always the same.

Antonio Pérez (6.7):
Worked hard, but wasn’t very noticeable during the match.

Yujin Kim (7.2):
A solid performance. Extra credit for his proactive style of play.

• He was everywhere on the pitch.
• If only his physical attributes were a little better.
• He’s only fifteen lol. Just wait.
• Yeah, he’s probably got another five years of growing left.

* * *

For a while afterward, everywhere I went—school, the streets, stores—people congratulated me on making my first start.

That match had drawn 8,000 spectators.

More than five percent of Leganés’ entire population had come to watch.

So the attention wasn’t surprising.

Anyway, playing as a starter taught me a lot.

I needed to manage my pace better.

I needed to practice passing faster while maintaining accuracy.

I needed to improve my ability to escape pressure.

I also needed to simplify my shooting motion as much as possible.

Listing everything out made it seem like a lot.

Still, if I worked steadily, I could probably improve all of those things before becoming an adult.

If I didn’t have that kind of talent, the club wouldn’t have given me a professional debut this early.

***

Today, like always, I headed to the training ground.

When I entered the locker room, Miguel greeted me.

“You’re early, kid.”

Everyone else called me “rookie,” but for some reason Miguel always called me “kid.”

“I didn’t really have anything else to do.”

“Same here.”

After changing into his training gear, Miguel headed outside.

“If you’re bored, ride the stationary bike. It’s easy on the knees.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to loosen up first. Today’s a session-only day. No mini-game. If we finish early, we get to go home.”

“Ah… right.”

“If you’re warming up anyway, come with me. Whether it’s one person or two, I still have to set up the same number of cones.”

“I’ll warm up too.”

The two of us carried cones and agility ladders onto the field.

Someone had arrived even earlier than us.

Captain Pablo Ramírez was practicing ball control with two footballs.

“Captain!”

“Oh? You’re both early.”

The three of us set up the cones and ladders.

“Let’s start with stretching.”

Following the captain’s lead, we began with dynamic stretching.

After that, we worked through various ladder drills.

Then we dribbled through the cones in zigzags over and over.

As we repeated the drills, more teammates gradually arrived.

“Why are you three here so early?”

“The captain dragged the rookie here, didn’t he?”

“Doesn’t the rookie have school today?”

“Idiot. It’s summer vacation.”

The training ground suddenly became noisy.

Then the manager arrived.

“Everyone’s here early? Good. Let’s start training.”

Almost immediately, he started clapping and shouting at a few players.

“Faster! Faster! Even a snail would move quicker than that! Faster!”

Apparently something during the Alcorcón match had bothered him.

Fortunately, neither I, the captain, nor Miguel became targets.

Most of the criticism was directed at the defenders.

Eventually training ended and we moved on to lunch.

After lunch came the team meeting.

Our next opponents would be SD Eibar, a team from La Liga 2.

Once the tactical briefing ended, the manager announced the lineup.

“First, the forwards. José and Fran!”

I genuinely congratulated Fran.

Just a few days ago he had been depressed about his low match rating.

Now he was starting.

As for me, my name appeared among the substitutes.

I wasn’t bothered.

This was a friendly match.

Substitutions were unlimited again.

And during the last match, some substitutes had actually played more minutes than certain starters.

There was no rule saying that couldn’t happen to me too.

Besides, our manager was the type who gave everyone a fair opportunity.

At least for now.