I Was a Loser, but When I Opened My Eyes, I Was Popular? -2
“Hmm… ss…”
“…”
“Mm… hmm…”
“Spit it out, spit it out. What’s bothering you?”
“Huh? Ah, Director. It’s not that.”
After the negotiations concluded, the agent and player representative filed out of the meeting room, leaving only team officials behind.
When one of the officials kept smacking his lips and tilting his head, Director Paolo asked.
The official spoke.
“It’s not that I’m dissatisfied. I just still don’t quite get it.”
“Don’t get what?”
“Whether that amount is right…”
“So you can’t trust my eyes. You’re wondering if this old man has gone senile.”
“Th-there’s no way. It’s just that I’m still too lacking to understand your insight, Director.”
“You sure are smooth with words. Just words. If your eye for people was half as good as that mouth of yours, I’d have retired and handed over my position long ago.”
At Director Paolo’s sigh-laden words, the official—Marco Villazzo, head of youth scouting—scratched his head.
Team Leader Marco spoke.
“Anyway. Isn’t that amount on par with the first-team players in their first or second year? Even if they haven’t re-signed yet.”
“So?”
“What I’m saying is, I’m curious why you decided to give first-team prospect treatment to a sixteen-year-old who hasn’t been with the team long and doesn’t have many results.”
It was already a settled matter, but Team Leader Marco asked out of pure curiosity.
Seeing that, Director Paolo began to explain readily instead of scolding him.
“Money is relative.”
“Relative?”
“For example, if a sixteen-year-old kid receives a weekly wage of four thousand euros, that’s an enormous sum.”
“Right.”
“But think about employing a first-team rotational player for four thousand euros. What is that?”
“……An insane bargain.”
“Exactly.”
Director Paolo nodded and gazed steadily at Team Leader Marco.
Team Leader Marco blinked, thinking more explanation would follow, and stared back at Director Paolo.
At that sight, Director Paolo furrowed his brows and sighed.
“I’m done explaining, you fool. Still don’t get it?”
“Huh? Ah, uh…”
At the rebuke, Team Leader Marco scratched his head, then furrowed his brows and spoke.
“So what you’re saying, Director, is that kid will become a first-team rotational player by the next salary negotiation? Meaning, before the year after next?”
“It certainly takes you a long time to understand something so simple.”
Director Paolo clicked his tongue, and Team Leader Marco shook his head as if he still found it hard to accept.
Team Leader Marco asked.
“I’m curious what exactly you saw to be so certain.”
At that question, Director Paolo leaned back in his chair and looked at an empty wall.
Seemingly lost in thought for a moment, he suddenly brought up an old story.
“It’s been nearly fifteen years. I was coaching the under-19 team. That summer we went to Spain for pre-season training. It was around the time everyone was saying we needed to learn Spanish football.”
“2008, around then. When Spain won the Euros.”
“Exactly. I took the kids around Spain playing practice matches. Their football was certainly different from ours. Watching them, so many kids made me wonder how they kicked the ball so beautifully. Especially the Barcelona kids—they were really good.”
“Those were the days.”
“But there was one kid who shocked me the most. And he wasn’t one of those famous La Masia kids.”
“Really? Where was he?”
“Real Sociedad. When we played a practice match against a team called Real Sociedad. There was this scrawny little guy who effortlessly diced through our kids even though they were a whole head taller than him.”
Whether because the memory was still vivid, Director Paolo smiled faintly.
“I asked how old he was, and he said seventeen. I asked if he had a pro contract, and he told me to mind my own business if I didn’t want to get kicked out, or something like that.”
“Who was it?”
When Team Leader Marco asked, unable to contain himself any longer, Director Paolo answered.
“Antoine Griezmann.”
“Ah…”
At the time, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say there were no football fans who knew the name Antoine Griezmann.
But Director Paolo was certain.
That name would soon spread throughout the football world.
“But if you’re bringing that up now… are you saying you felt something similar from that kid?”
At Team Leader Marco’s question, Director Paolo nodded.
Director Paolo had felt the exact same shock in the recent match against Empoli that he had felt when he first saw the player called Griezmann.
Director Paolo said.
“The kid knows. He knows how to win matches. Have you ever seen a naturally boring person become funny by studying humor?”
“Never.”
“Of course not. It can’t be learned by rote. This is the realm of sense. It’s the same. He was born with sense. I’m saying he possesses the talent most difficult to fail with.”
The reason Director Paolo could be certain of Griezmann’s success was precisely that sense.
Well, players with better physical conditions than their peers, faster, with better technique? They’re good too.
Of course they’re good, but such talents are insufficient to be certain about the future. There are too many variables. Development can easily stall, or easily regress.
But intelligence in understanding the sport of football, and sense. This is different.
This has low variability. In the uncertainty-filled youth level, the only talent truly worth trusting is this one.
And that kid was the one who possessed it.
“You still look doubtful.”
“Ah, no.”
“So, do you believe it?”
“Of course I do.”
“Do I look like God? Believe it blindly?”
As Director Paolo clicked his tongue, Marco made an expression as if to ask what he was supposed to do then.
“I’m not God. So I could be wrong. But I have a good feeling about this one. That’s why I’m yammering on like this.”
He always called himself an old man who should have retired long ago, but Director Paolo still had confidence in his instincts.
“You’ve got a long way to go.”
“Yes, yes. A long way.”
“Let’s meet again in a year. To see if this contract was truly excessive.”
“I never said it was excessive.”
“Tsk.”
Director Paolo clicked his tongue and packed his bag.
...
“Thank you for your hard work despite your busy schedule.”
“Not at all! Honestly, I didn’t do anything!”
“Still, thank you for coming all this way.”
After the contract was signed.
We were having a light meal and conversation at a nearby restaurant.
From what I knew, contracts were quite complicated and difficult matters.
They had been before, and the time before that too.
They took quite a while. Both sides exchanged various documents and discussed seriously—sometimes taking days or even months. That was the contract I knew.
But today was different.
It ended really quickly. An hour? No. It felt like it ended in almost thirty minutes.
Without any back-and-forth arguments, it was settled with just one contract document.
“Haha! Well, anyway, it seems the team sees your value very accurately! It’s a good team, this team!”
The nickname “ruthless negotiating genius” didn’t suit my agent today.
Today he was just a yes-man.
Right until entering the meeting room, he had been saying he’d squeeze them dry, that we had to make them the suckers so we wouldn’t be suckers.
But when he saw the actual contract, he just blinked like a sucker.
But… it was understandable.
“This is the weekly wage you’ll receive upon signing. This is the yearly salary.”
“Eek!?”
I still can’t believe it. When my agent held out the contract to me, the weekly wage written there was far from what I’d expected.
Very far.
[€4,095/week]
Good heavens…
Four thousand euros. Four thousand euros.
My current weekly wage was just over two hundred euros.
Meaning, they were raising my current wage by a whopping twenty times.
No, I mean! They were giving me money that could pay twenty kids without pro contracts!
“Uh…”
I was at a loss for words.
Honestly, I couldn’t understand it.
…Why? What am I to be offered so much…? No, I knew wages jumped when signing a pro contract, but.
By this much…?
Seeing that not only I but also my agent was surprised, this was definitely something surprising.
When I was too stunned to speak, my agent explained like this.
“As I told you before, with a youth contract, other teams can pay compensation and take you, right? This pro contract is to prevent that. Meaning, the team wants to keep you even if they have to pay this much.”
Perhaps sensing I still didn’t quite get it, my agent explained once more, more simply.
That is, if I refused this and negotiated with another team, there was no way for the team to stop me under the system.
They had offered this amount to make sure they secured my heart.
Right… I understood what he meant.
But I still didn’t truly understand.
No, so what am I for them to worry about being stolen by another team…?
Bruno, who unlike me had consistently played as a starter and was a year older, had said he got ten times his original wage.
What am I to get twenty times…?
“That just means the team acknowledges your potential.”
Potential…
In that moment, I felt an indescribable emotion welling up.
What am I to this team… they took me in when I left that team in Torino. They waited silently when I couldn’t get my act together.
And now they even see potential in me that I myself don’t know about.
“I’m… satisfied.”
I nodded without a word, and my agent agreed it was a good idea.
There was some time adjusting minor details after that, but the negotiation ended in the blink of an eye.
Exiting the meeting room, I was no longer just a youth player, but a professional player of the future.
“Well, congratulations. I’ll take my leave now. My work isn’t done.”
“Ah, yes. Thank you for your hard work.”
“Hard work? Not at all! Haha! See you again soon!”
My agent stood up with a hearty laugh.
As my agent rummaged in his jacket’s inner pocket, he said.
“Well, I’ll pay the bill…”
Then Dad waved his hands.
“Oh, I’ll pay. Thank you for today.”
“Hey now! What kind of person lets a client treat them! I’m not like that!”
“I’m the elder. I’ll pay.”
“But still…”
A petty squabble suddenly broke out.
I watched for a moment, then sighed and spoke.
“I’ll pay.”
“…Huh?”
“You?”
This much for a meal was nothing to me now.
“How much could it be…”
I am… a god.
...
“You’re going straight to training after school, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Have a good day. Listen well in class, nap discreetly if you’re sleepy. Buy your friends something tasty too.”
“Got it. I’ll be back.”
I left the house, replying to Dad’s not-quite-nagging. Today was a school day.
Unlike Korea, Italy starts school around late September and ends the academic year in June.
I transferred to the high school near my house at the beginning of this year and had attended for about a semester.
And since completing this year would qualify as compulsory education, I planned to graduate after just one more year.
By the way.
“Hoo…”
The closer I got to school, the more my heart pounded like crazy. I didn’t know why I was so nervous. My palms were sweating almost as much as when I played against Napoli.
Truthfully, I didn’t have particularly good memories of school.
Especially at the school I attended early in my studies abroad, I had nothing but bad memories.
I was already someone who couldn’t approach others easily, and early in my studies abroad I didn’t even know Italian.
I couldn’t get along with friends, and some nasty kids had bullied me.
At the time, the team didn’t actively look after me either.
Those nasty kids were also from the same team I played on.
Because of those memories, the way to school wasn’t very light. Well, nothing like that happened at my current school. But I hadn’t made any close friends either.
Sigh.
Come to think of it, I had kept all of this secret from Jiu. Because these were stories I wanted to hide just as much as soccer…
How will this year be?
I just wish I could get through it quietly.
“…We’re already here.”
Lost in various worries, I had arrived at school before I knew it. I climbed the stairs, passed through the hallway, and stood before the classroom door.
Even then, I hesitated several times before opening the door, took a deep breath, and steeled myself.
‘Who am I? A man with a weekly wage of four thousand euros.’
Yeah. So what?
No one can bully me now.
Let’s go in confidently.
After nodding once, I opened the door and entered the classroom.
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