Even though it was clearly just a brief moment, being chased by Hakimi was as terrifying as if I’d become a thief.
He was so fast that I thought he’d never need to worry about pickpockets, and I immediately calculated that I could never win a footrace against him.
Still, I’d faced my share of fast players.
I especially remember Milan’s Theo Hernández being insanely fast.
But Hakimi felt a step quicker than even him.
Maybe it only felt faster because I was the one being chased, but anyway.
Tap-tap-!
I flicked my upper body and swiveled my legs in front of him as he waited in a low stance... yet the courage to burst out to one side wouldn’t readily come.
Even if I somehow stole the timing and broke past, it felt like I’d be caught immediately.
It was so annoying—what on earth did he eat to be this fast?
But there was no point arguing about the unfairness of innate talent here.
What mattered was how to overcome it...
“...”
Using my teammates was impossible.
It was an isolation situation to begin with.
Other defenders were closer than my teammates.
It meant there was no other way than to settle it one-on-one.
While busily moving my upper body and legs, my mind flailed about, working even faster to find a way to break him.
I didn’t look at the ball, focusing only on his legs and body. I observed meticulously how his reactions differed when I swayed my upper body left versus right, and when I touched the ball with the inside versus the outside of my foot.
As expected, he reacted more strongly to the right than the left.
He showed a clear determination to allow a breakthrough to the side but never to the center.
In that instant.
Feeling my head flare up, I picked one option out of dozens and ended my deliberation.
My body reacted immediately to the command from my brain.
I flicked my upper body to the right, then knocked the ball to the left and burst out.
Tap-tap-!
The first breakthrough... succeeded.
Because he’d been warier of the center, the upper-body feint worked perfectly.
But it was only half a success.
The direction I needed to go was the center in the first place... and though I’d opened up some distance, he would clearly catch up soon.
Still, I thought that even perfect success begins from half-success.
Tap-tap-tap-!
No matter how much space he gave me on the side, if I drove deep, the defense had no choice but to follow.
Compared to blocking while waiting, chasing to defend exposes gaps in any defender.
For a fast player... especially so.
Tap-tap-tap-!
The moment the presence I’d felt behind me was suddenly beside me.
I tapped the ball toward the opponent rushing at me with long strides.
Tuk-!
It’s impossible to quickly shorten your stride while sprinting. Especially while chasing—there’s no time to watch the gap between your legs.
That prior half-success had given me the high ground.
Srrr-
The ball passed between the opponent’s legs.
At the same time, I pushed off with my left foot and cut direction to the right.
The opponent, who had been sprinting urgently, tried to cut direction too but couldn’t overcome his own momentum and passed right by me.
In that gap, I quickly dribbled the ball toward the box.
Tap-tap-tap-!
It would have been nice if it were near the corner of the box, but I was a bit closer to the goal line.
Thanks to that, the shooting angle was extremely narrow.
The goalkeeper hugging the near post and the center back in front of him made it even harder to see an opening.
But... I had to shoot.
Whether it went in or not, I had to finish it.
Tuk-!
I pushed the ball diagonally back with the outside of my right foot.
A foolish move that put me farther from the goal myself, but a choice to secure even a slightly better angle.
And as I’d trained, I looked at the far post and drew back my right foot.
As if wrapping around...
Bwoooooong-!
The impact... was roughly right.
But... it wasn’t a perfect feeling.
Shoooooong-
Maybe because I was too conscious of the nonexistent angle.
The trajectory of the shot was too far outside.
No matter how much it curved, it was a trajectory that seemed unlikely to be sucked into the goal.
...I wish everything went according to calculation.
If that were possible, I wouldn’t be I Jian; I’d be Messi.
“Ahhh!”
“Argh! So close!”
As the shot narrowly grazed past the goalframe, my teammates expressed even more regret than I did.
I too let out a sigh and swept my hair back.
And as I returned to my position, I raised my hand toward my teammates.
It was a sign of apology for having missed the chance, but also a signal asking for the ball once more because I felt I could score next time.
It didn’t seem... completely impossible to break through.
*
Shoooooong-
Around the 8th minute of the first half.
The moment I Jian’s shot, after completely shaking off Hakimi on the left side, narrowly missed the goal.
Messi, standing near the halfway line watching the sequence, stroked his beard.
Then, he began to stare at I Jian.
“...”
For a few seconds, he looked at I Jian like that.
Soon, Messi turned his gaze and looked around with an expression as if lost in thought.
One player, then another.
Having taken in each ally and opponent one by one, Messi toyed with his beard again.
This time, he turned his head toward the bench.
“...”
The bench was quiet.
Coach Galtier, standing in the technical area, merely stood with his arms crossed.
He showed no particular movement.
At this, Messi scratched his head as if displeased with something, then called for Hakimi.
Because the stadium was loud, he had to call him three times.
Anyway, Hakimi responded to the call by opening his eyes wide and raising his chin as if asking what was up, and Messi quietly waved his hand.
“...Go back. Back.”
It was a gesture telling him to drop back.
Don’t come forward.
And he held up two fingers to Wijnaldum, the central midfielder standing nearby, and said a word.
“...Two. Two of you have to mark him.”
At those words, Hakimi and Wijnaldum nodded at the same time.
And they glanced at I Jian once.
Messi did the same.
After confirming that Hakimi and Wijnaldum were adjusting their positions, he too glanced at I Jian once more.
Then he turned his body and muttered.
“...Should’ve stopped him with a foul.”
They were players who didn’t need every little thing explained, so he didn’t say it aloud, but...
They should’ve stopped him with a foul just now.
The shot only narrowly missed—weren’t we on the verge of conceding a cheap goal?
Well, anyway, that was in the past, and so be it.
What he liked even less was the bench showing no movement despite having seen that.
As he’d just seen, today was not a game to use Hakimi like they usually did in the league.
Today, Hakimi shouldn’t come up aggressively, nor did he need to.
That was Messi’s thought after watching the game for just over 8 minutes.
Hakimi was a player with outstanding offensive talent, but his defensive ability didn’t match up.
To make matters worse, the opponent’s ace was no ordinary talent.
So he needed to be kept back to play defense focused solely on holding his position.
Moreover, today there was no need for him to actively push up on attack.
Because Messi had already calculated that the attacking line, including himself, could produce enough goals on their own.
*
“...Ah.”
A sigh, or perhaps admiration.
Exhaling a breath that was strangely half-and-half, I turned my head to look at the scoreboard.
At the point when 18 minutes of the first half had passed.
The number 0 changed to 1.
18:16
FIO 0 : 1 PSG
We’d conceded a goal.
It hadn’t even been much of a situation.
A few passes were exchanged, and before we knew it, we’d given up a goal just like that.
The scorer... was Messi.
He’d been barely visible all game, then suddenly appeared from the left at one point, leading directly to the conceded goal.
So it felt somehow even more bewildering.
“...”
In an instant the stadium went quiet, and while the senior players put their hands on their hips, those three embraced near the corner flag.
Amidst my slight daze, I heard the captain’s voice clapping and shouting.
“It’s okay! It’s okay! It’s not even 20 minutes yet! Let’s try again!”
He was encouraging the other seniors with a powerful voice... but for some reason, I felt slightly uneasy.
Thinking about why... usually, when we conceded, the captain would first point out what the mistake was.
Whether someone missed the line, or lost a man on one side, or apologized saying it was his own fault.
Since the captain was the leader of the defensive line, feedback on why we conceded took priority.
Encouragement like “it’s okay, let’s try again” came after that.
But now, there was no such feedback.
And that made sense... because I didn’t really know either. What mistake we had made, that is.
Honestly... it didn’t seem like we’d done anything particularly wrong.
If I had to call something a mistake, it was that we’d let Messi have a 1v1 on the side.
But that couldn’t be helped, because Mbappé was attempting a run into the back space nearby, pulling the defense away.
Even in that situation, if two defenders had focused only on Messi... Messi would have passed.
Then the scorer’s name would change from Messi to Mbappé, but wouldn’t the result have been the same?
Right now... the opponent had simply played well.
So I swallowed hard.
Because nothing came to mind on what more we could do to stop those three.
“...”
Standing to place the ball at the center circle for the restart, I broke into a smirk without realizing it.
Ahead of the new season, I’d once thought that I wanted to meet a real genius.
I hadn’t known I’d meet one so easily, let alone three at once.
Maybe the preseason had only been the preseason after all. I felt that if I met Manchester United or Barcelona again now, it would feel completely different.
Anyway, while conceding left me feeling both futile and helpless.
I realized once again why I had wanted to see geniuses.
After watching real geniuses play, I felt an electric current running through one side of my brain.
Beeeeep-!
With the whistle, I restarted play by passing the ball back.
And as I headed back to my position on the left, I exchanged a few words with Saponara.
Then, arriving near the side, the ball was indeed moving on the opposite side as expected.
But the space around me wasn’t very ample.
Because Hakimi had dropped back, and the opponent’s central midfielder was also stuck to my side.
It was a change that occurred after my first shot.
A feeling that they wouldn’t even give me a chance to attempt a 1v1.
Thanks to that, space wasn’t opening up well.
With two defenders sticking to me, Bonaventura, who had tried to send me the ball as planned, kept aborting his passes.
Of course, if I’d moved to a completely different area, I might have received the pass, but honestly, I wanted to break past Hakimi in a 1v1.
Right before conceding, I’d been struggling to figure out how to create a 1v1 situation like before.
But just now, seeing Messi’s goal, I’d burst out in admiration mixed with a sigh.
Because while I’d been racking my brains, Messi had created such a situation with an absurdly simple method.
Thanks to that, I’d somehow gotten a hint.
One might say I’m shamelessly trying to copy the opponent right now, but I never had any shame to begin with.
What need does a liar have for a conscience?
The same went for pride.
I had no thought that I had to break through with a method I came up with myself.
When there was already a proven method devised by a real genius, why would I insist on my own?
I just had to use it.
“...”
While cautiously gauging my surroundings, the moment I saw Saponara approaching me just as we’d discussed.
Tap-tap-!
I dropped back to create distance from the defender and raised my hand to ask for a pass.
Swoooooosh-!
At that, a switch pass came toward me, and because Saponara was standing in the half-space, the central midfielder couldn’t stick to me.
Paang-!
Thanks to that, I controlled the ball comfortably.
And I advanced again, moving up along the touchline.
Then, the opponent’s central midfielder, who had been mindful of Saponara, now tried to stick to me... but at that moment, I sent a signal.
At that signal, Saponara penetrated the back space along the half-space.
Tap-tap-tap-!
And I stood still with the ball settled at my feet and my right foot raised.
My gaze was fixed on Saponara.
At my appearance, the hesitant opponent midfielder backpedaled and then began chasing Saponara.
...As expected, a genius is different for a reason.
With this simple movement, Messi had reduced the defenders facing him from two to one.
Tap-tap-tap-!
The moment space opened up, I immediately dribbled toward Hakimi, who was left alone.
And this time, maintaining that speed, cleanly. I cut direction to the right and drove in.
Earlier I’d gone left and been allowed to break through there, so I thought his reaction to the center would be delayed. I wasn’t wrong.
With a single change of direction, Hakimi’s center collapsed.
Tap-tap-tap-!
I dragged the ball horizontally just like that.
Before I knew it, I’d reached the left corner of the box... and once again, I drew back my right foot.
As if wrapping around.
Bwoooooong-!
Even if you’re not a genius, you don’t make the same mistake twice.
The sensation traveling up my leg was much crisper than before.
Shooooooong-
And the curving trajectory closely resembled the one I’d drawn hundreds of times in training.
The fruit of effort—having had to repeat something hundreds or thousands of times because I wasn’t a genius—was being drawn on the pitch.
Thwack-!!
The moment the ball rode the side net and was sucked inside...
Waaaaaaaah—!!!
An enormous roar erupted from the stands.