There is no player greater than the team.
These were the words of Manchester United’s legendary manager, Alex Ferguson, famous as a maxim that transcends football to permeate all team sports.
No matter how outstanding an individual, no matter what superstar they may be, it means they cannot reign supreme over the team.
Because the team does not exist for the player; the player exists for the team.
If that relationship is reversed, the team cannot function properly, and it implies that things will eventually fall apart.
The reason these words became a famous maxim was likely because most people agree that in team sports, nothing is more important than teamwork.
Football is not a one-on-one sport but an eleven-on-eleven contest, and no matter how great an individual’s influence, they cannot surpass the synergy produced by eleven people.
Among team sports, football has the largest number of players, so teamwork—that is, organizational strength—must always be the top priority, must it not?
The case of Real Madrid, once called the ‘Galácticos,’ could be seen as one of the best examples.
In the early 2000s, Real Madrid at the time swept up stars whose names alone made jaws drop, creating a corps of galacticos.
Luís Figo.
David Beckham.
Claude Makélélé.
Zinedine Zidane.
Michael Owen.
Ronaldo.
A lineup composed solely of aces from major clubs was literally Galácticos—a galaxy—and they transformed into a team of such caliber that one wondered if they even had rivals, gathering enormous expectations.
And they actually displayed destructive power that lived up to those expectations.
They won both La Liga and the Super Cup in 2001 and 2003, and in 2002 they even clinched the Champions League title.
Especially, the destructive power shown by the attacking lineup in that process was at a shocking level.
With Roberto Carlos and Raúl González added to the aforementioned members, the offensive strength displayed by this ultra-luxurious corps deserved to be called the best.
But even so.
Now, with the passage of time, the public evaluation of the Galácticos was close to ‘failure.’
Because its ending was so hollow compared to its splendid beginning.
It started when Claude Makélélé left the team.
Before the 2003–04 season began, Makélélé transferred to Chelsea, and from that season, the Galacticos corps could not capture a single trophy.
It was strange.
All the other stars were still there; it made no sense that the results would nosedive just because one man, Makélélé, was missing.
Moreover, Makélélé had the second-lowest transfer fee among those who joined for the Galácticos, after Michael Owen.
He hadn’t particularly had a large presence compared to the other stars either.
But that was precisely the problem.
Makélélé was a player who ran for the team rather than for his own presence.
The one who took care of the dirty work, as they say.
He was a devoted player.
When Makélélé was gone, there was no one to fill that role.
Before anyone knew it, the Galácticos had become a team where the players existed above the team.
As a result, it was perhaps only natural that their results began to plummet.
Thus.
There can be no individual greater than the team.
But such is the way of the world.
As long as it is not an absolute law, there always exists an exception.
Very rarely.
There are rare, exceptional cases where it is not the individual existing for the team, but the team existing for the individual.
“···.”
Around the time the first half passed the 30-minute mark.
Japan’s manager Moriyasu looked out at the pitch with his fingers on his chin, seemingly anxious.
The score was 0–1.
However, there was still plenty of time left.
With roughly 60 minutes still remaining, it didn’t seem like a situation to be so anxious about.
But right now, neither the score nor the time was the problem.
The initiative of the match itself had passed to the opponent.
The match simply wouldn’t open up.
The opponent had a firm grip on the flow and atmosphere.
But the real problem was that there was no visible way to break through this stalled flow.
Well.
It could be that he lacked the capability as a manager and couldn’t come up with a sharp solution.
But if he were to make an excuse, the current problem lay not in team tactics or partial tactics.
It was something not within the manager’s power to fix.
Honestly, he thought he had won the tactical battle.
That had been starkly clear until the early stages of the match.
He had predicted the opponent’s 4-3-3 formation and brought out a 4-1-2-3 shape, and it had hit the mark.
He had reaped benefits from forward pressure based on superior numbers in attack and quick passing play.
The opponent hadn’t been able to respond quickly.
The same was true in terms of match preparation.
Just watching the players’ movements linking several passes or finding spaces into, one could feel they were a cut above in organizational strength.
The opponent frequently made passing mistakes even in ordinary situations, whereas his side showed perfect chemistry without mistakes.
Thus, he could pride himself on having won the battle of the benches.
But··· around the 10th minute of the first half.
It was when he had been thinking that it would be nice to score quickly soon.
It was a moment.
In an instant, the meticulously designed gears that had been worked on for a long time were thrown out of alignment.
A single one-man counterattack by the opponent, just one blow, had resulted in conceding a goal.
It wasn’t a tactical problem.
Nobody had made a fatal mistake.
It wasn’t a problem of defensive organization either.
They just, just··· couldn’t stop it.
They couldn’t stop the opponent from breaking through by force.
That was all.
It was like having set a difficult password for the front door, installed locks, put up security bars, and made every possible preparation.
Only for a tank to smash through the door itself and roll on in.
If such a thing happened before your eyes, what could a homeowner do?
What could they do?
They could only watch blankly.
There was nothing they could do to stop it.
“···.”
The same was true after conceding.
Perhaps the players felt something too, for the atmosphere on the pitch changed completely after conceding.
It was the same on both sides.
The Japanese players, who had been playing quite confidently until then, became somewhat passive and began making mistakes.
On the other hand, the Korean players began to show composure as if riding momentum, and their combinations started clicking.
At the center of it all was, as expected, the Manchester City star player who had inflicted the goal.
Just as he had when scoring, he unraveled the match by himself.
When Japan applied forward pressure, he dropped down to help with ball possession, and with brilliant movements he even shook off the pressure, taking charge of carrying the ball.
He also directed the entire flow of the match by himself.
When tension was needed, he injected tension with sharp dribbles and forward passes; when things needed to be calmed, he loosened the flow by circulating passes slowly or putting on a show of shaking off pressure.
When he had the ball, all remaining 21 players had to match his rhythm.
There was no room for something like tactics to squeeze in between.
If you can’t steal the ball and can’t even stop him from turning, what use is there talking about forward pressure or defensive lines?
Even if you pulled one man aside to mark him man-to-man, it was no use—what could be done?
Amidst this, the opponent quickly read the situation and appropriately adjusted their movements.
Truthfully, it was hard to call this a tactical change either; it was simply leaving everything to the number 10 and having the rest of the players move accordingly.
They funneled him the ball as much as possible, and in return covered for him defensively and created space.
To call that tactics··· his pride as a manager would not allow it.
If forced to name it, wasn’t it simply ‘Do it for us’?
Entrusting everything to one person and hoping that one person does it all.
But what really made his blood boil was that it was working.
And working very well at that.
Against his own team that had been completed through long deliberation and preparation.
He felt aggrieved by the opposing manager who, sitting on the bench without a thought in his head, was watching the match unfold smoothly.
But thinking about it, there was nothing to feel aggrieved about.
Because in the end, it is the players who play the match.
It is only natural that the better players win the match.
Thinking like that, there was no need to feel aggrieved fretting over tactics.
Because possessing good players is itself a strength.
“···”
Come to think of it, why.
How does such an irregular keep popping up from that small country with a mere 50 million population?
Whether in population or infrastructure, the probability of geniuses popping out should obviously be much higher on this side.
Why on earth does a defender going to Bayern Munich, a Premier League top scorer, and the ace of the world’s strongest team come from that narrow peninsula?
I simply cannot understand.
“···”
Of course, to express grievance, there was nothing to say since the composition of this Japan national team had been evaluated as the strongest in history.
Wataru Endo, who established himself at Liverpool, or Junya Ito, evaluated as a top-class forward in Ligue 1.
There is also Tomiyasu, a regular at Arsenal, and Kaoru Mitoma, the ace of Brighton’s attack.
And they have all reached the point of enjoying their prime.
Looking at the players’ lineup alone, his side was not lacking in being called a golden generation either.
Yet even that fairly splendid lineup was utterly shabby before the opponent.
How did a Premier League top scorer and a Manchester City ace happen to each stand at the extreme to form a single generation?
Why are those monsters out in the same generation and playing on the same team, I ask you.
“···”
He knew this wasn’t the time to be having such thoughts.
Now was not the time to feel helpless, but to ponder how to turn the atmosphere around.
But watching the protagonist of the opponent who makes everyone else into extras··· nothing but other thoughts and regrets came to mind.
He shouldn’t have lost to Iraq.
He absolutely should have finished first in the group.
Then he wouldn’t have created this Round of 16 matchup in the first place.
He could already see all kinds of criticism pouring down.
If they were eliminated in the Round of 16, and by Korea of all teams, what would be said?
Perhaps because he had been hounded by the press so much, article titles automatically popped into his head.
‘The gilded generation whose shell was peeled off before the real golden generation.’
Wouldn’t it be something like that?
“···”
Even amidst all this, the opponent’s number 10 was ravaging the Japanese players.
*
Earnestness, to me, is like Dad or Ji-u.
Because they give me the belief that no matter what happens, they will never betray me.
I haven’t really given anything in particular.
He always repays my faith.
Today seemed no different.
It was fortunate that the goal came early.
If not for that, a difficult flow might have continued, but with the early goal, the atmosphere changed completely.
The opponent was visibly flustered, and we were able to ride the flow and unfold the match easily.
The captain was indeed the captain.
I realized anew why he had been able to rise to such a position.
The captain’s pre-match analysis had hit the mark exactly, and unfolding the match exactly according to his words meant there was nothing difficult.
But even so, anxiety remained until the second half began and time passed.
Because the score remained 1–0.
Though we had clearly seized the flow, I couldn’t relax because an additional goal wouldn’t come.
If I were to make excuses, I too had much to do.
I had to keep creating chances for the captain, but I couldn’t focus only on that as I had much to attend to in the back as well.
I couldn’t just keep attacking.
But such worries were merely presumptuous worries, for around the 20th minute of the second half, the captain’s goal erupted.
Remembering the captain running shoulder to shoulder with Walker during the counterattack without being pushed back, I threaded in a pass, and the captain turned the opposing defenders into scarecrows with his speed before ramming the ball into the net.
The moment it became 2–0, the atmosphere tilted completely.
The opponent looked half-given up, and seeing that, our motivation rose even more.
Because nothing is as exciting as seeing the opponent struggle.
The match was already over with that.
Beep, beeeep, beeeeeeeep—!
When the whistle signaling the end of the match blew, it was we who smiled.
A 2–0 victory.
It was we who advanced to the quarterfinals.
It was a match where losing would have been disastrous.
But today too, nothing disastrous happened.
I always feel this, but why am I so lucky?
In that sense, I thought that when I returned to the lodgings, I should call Ji-u first.
Because Ji-u is the greatest luck of my life.