“No need to overcomplicate it. Strike them directly.”
One hour before the match began.
After both starting lineups were announced, the coach, who had been writing names on the magnetic board in the locker room, called me over and said this.
What the coach pointed to with his finger was the name Eric Dier.
He had ordered me to avoid overly complicated approaches and aggressively seek out 1v1s, to continuously strike the box directly.
The reason was that while he was a commander-type defender, he wasn’t a defender skilled at man-marking.
And just three minutes after the first half began.
The trust in the coach, which I had already believed to have reached its peak, soared even higher toward the sky.
If I just listened to that person, I felt like I could make money lying down and sleeping.
“Relax! relax!”
Anyway, though I had scored, I didn’t do any flashy celebration.
I simply returned to our half and waited for the restart.
It was an early goal, so it wasn’t something to celebrate as if we’d already won, and we weren’t people who would be happy with just one point.
It was both respect for the opponent and confidence in ourselves.
Respect that we couldn’t beat the opponent with just one goal.
Confidence that it wouldn’t end with just one goal.
“···”
It was a personal greed, but I wanted to score a goal I could be certain about.
Because I had prepared something and wanted to show it off.
It was about the purple undershirt I wore beneath my uniform.
If I showed that I was still wearing this, the brothers watching in Italy would surely like it.
*
When I was with the Fiorentina U17 team, Coach Tony, who was the coach at the time, had told me something.
That respect for the opponent and humility are insurance that costs no money.
Insurance that you take out just in case.
He said that only with a heart that respects the opponent can you avoid wavering when a crisis comes during the match.
Because if you look down on the opponent and become complacent, you easily collapse when faced with a crisis, but if you have a heart of respect, you can respond with composure.
However, well.
Even without such teachings, I probably couldn’t help but have that mindset in a match like today.
Because the opponent’s name was ‘Bayern Munich’.
How many players wouldn’t feel respect in front of that name?
Thwack-!
The unexpected blow came around the 20th minute of the first half.
An attack from the right side was interrupted by a cut pass, and we conceded a goal on the counterattack just like that.
Even though it wasn’t an easy chance, the opposing striker squeezed between the defenders and successfully finished.
When the goal went in, the thick white fog filling the stadium grew even denser.
Red flames burst here and there, and acrid smoke filled the stadium to the point of suffocation.
Listening to the home fans roaring like beasts beyond that foggy vision, it would be a lie to say my heart wasn’t pounding.
The atmosphere was terrifying.
It was an environment that could easily shake you.
Conceding a goal due to a single mistake while leading the match well. Feeling a bit aggrieved while the home crowd’s cheers and mockery reached a crescendo. The opponent moving even faster the moment the match resumed.
It was a fairly common occurrence.
After an equalizer, the atmosphere turns strange, and the go-ahead goal comes more easily and quickly than expected.
The players were human too, whether on this side or that.
It was impossible not to be swept up by the air and atmosphere of the stadium.
But my teammates remained calm.
To me, that felt even scarier.
“Nothing changed! Keep it up, guys!”
When the whistle blew to resume, nothing had changed.
We circulated the ball as before, and even when the pressing intensified, the teammates responded calmly.
They simply kicked the ball as instructed, as trained, without a change in expression.
Probably because they had expected it.
That it wouldn’t be an easy match.
If you came to a stadium called the Allianz Arena to play against Bayern Munich and expected an easy game, perhaps that would be the stranger thing.
There was respect for the opponent, and that insurance had been activated just now.
Moreover, rather.
In the appearance of those teammates, I caught a glimpse of a champion’s demeanor.
I felt it in the way they focused only on our game without reacting to their surroundings.
Perhaps because it revealed the confidence that if we just did our thing, we wouldn’t lose to anyone.
So I, too, was able to quickly hide my fear inside.
It would be a lie to say it disappeared completely, but I didn’t show it enough to be noticeable on the outside.
If my teammates felt scarier than the opponent, wasn’t I wearing the same uniform as them.
Nothing made me square my shoulders more than that.
*
[At 1-1, as I Jian and Kane have exchanged a goal each. The second half is beginning the moment I speak.]
For some, the first half flew by in an instant; for others, it crawled by, and it ended.
Both teams switched sides and began the second half.
[Though they are in a balanced draw, looking at the content, the score is a regrettable result for Manchester City at the moment.]
[I agree. They had more possession, and shots were 8 to 3, five more. If it weren’t for Neuer’s saves, it might have already been 3-1.]
[But conversely, you could say that Munich played efficient football.]
[Exactly. Somehow holding on is a skill in itself, and Kane’s equalizer was a goal that showed why Kane is Kane.]
Nothing changed in the second half either.
Munich sat back and counterattacked.
Manchester City took the initiative.
Truthfully, for a team like Munich to make such a choice could be seen as a courageous decision.
Because it meant putting aside their pride for the result.
Even so, they’re Bayern Munich.
And to take a defensive-first, counterattacking stance at home.
Isn’t that the German king admitting they’re outclassed by the English king?
But football is about winning.
Strong teams don’t win; winning teams are strong, so it seemed like a perfectly reasonable choice.
However, to be more honest, it was closer to being forced rather than a choice.
Because they couldn’t establish any physical contest in the midfield at all.
[Though I Jian and Kane have each recorded one goal, simply comparing goals alone, their influence on the match is different.]
[Even though it’s unavoidable due to team tactics or roles. I Jian’s influence in the midfield stands out.]
I Jian roamed around dominating the midfield, and they simply couldn’t control him.
No matter how they tried to press, he slipped through every which way, so it didn’t work.
They couldn’t even assign two or three players to focus on marking him because the midfield was filled with players like De Bruyne and Rodri.
So they had no choice but to step back.
Giving up the midfield fight.
Once you lose the midfield, playing a dominant game becomes impossible.
Thanks to that, the only thing Munich could attempt was the counterattack.
For Munich fans, it was a sight they couldn’t easily get used to.
Because in the league, they were always the team that took the initiative and beat down the opponent.
Being in the opposite situation, how could they get used to it.
They weren’t unaware of a player named I Jian.
Even if he was a player from another league, there was no way they didn’t know a player being mentioned as a Ballon d’Or candidate at just eighteen years old.
He was a genius among geniuses, they had heard that his talent was different, and they knew he was a player to be wary of as much as De Bruyne.
But you have to try something to know if it’s long or short.
Now that they faced him directly, it was even more bewildering.
Was he always at this level?
Did this mean there was such a gap that the Munich players couldn’t do anything?
The best players in the Bundesliga forming Munich’s midfield all looked merely ordinary in front of that slender boy.
The more that happened, the louder the fans’ voices calling Kane’s name became.
The only thing worth hoping for at a time like this was Kane’s decisiveness.
As he had shown in the first half, he had to connect just one chance into a goal.
That was how the world evaluated it.
They were putting that impossibly talented boy and Kane on the same level as competitors.
Weren’t they at the same position in the betting odds for the Ballon d’Or.
But as the second half progressed.
The fans filling the stands began to be confused by the gap between such indicators and reality.
No matter how much the arm bends inward.
The difference in visible influence on the pitch was enough to surpass such logic.
It made them unable to understand why those two were placed on the same line.
And that exploded in the 15th minute of the second half.
[I Jian, nice touch! He turns in front of the box!]
I Jian, who had broken through the midfield with a one-touch pass, received the ball in front of the box.
With a first touch taking the ball in the opposite direction, I Jian gained freedom in a narrow space and advanced fearlessly.
The opponent was Dier again.
Because of the bad memory he already had, he wanted to call for help, but monsters like Haaland were swarming in another corner of the box.
He couldn’t call for help.
He had no choice but to face him 1v1 again.
But the result of the contest was already visible in his demeanor.
Dier was flinching and showing a passive defensive stance stepping back, while I Jian charged without hesitation.
There was no humiliating scene like in the first half.
Rather, Dier did nothing.
To the point that it seemed nothing would have changed if they had put a training mannequin there instead of him.
I Jian shot comfortably even with Dier in front of him, and that shot was sucked into the corner of the goal.
[Manchester City takes the lead again! What terrifying focus!]
However, what made the fans feel bitter came next.
Just as they had after the first goal, the Manchester City players once again omitted celebrations.
From that attitude, as if they still couldn’t be satisfied, a sense of humiliation arose.
A feeling like they had become frogs in a well.
And that anger and bitterness soon became reality.
Just before the second half ended, in the 43rd minute.
Pa-a-ang-!
This time, there was a cutback from Foden on the right.
It was a sharp cutback when everyone had expected a cross toward the front of the goal, and among the players in the box, the only one who seemed to have anticipated that cutback and moved was I Jian.
Because while everyone rushed toward the front of the goal, he was the only one who dropped back a step to create space.
Ppeo-eo-eo-eong-!
Thwack-!
In the end, in their own home.
Munich had to face the humiliation of conceding three goals and feel helplessness.
They had to intuit that the first leg was over upon seeing the opponent, who until now hadn’t celebrated, finally putting on a celebration.
And they hated it.
Looking at I Jian receiving a yellow card for taking off his shirt in celebration, they looked at themselves thinking it was fortunate he had even received a card.
To be happy over something like that, they felt like they had become fans of a weak team.
Be that as it may.
Someone was ecstatic about that celebration.
[······Hat trick! I Jian makes the Allianz Arena his own! A third goal that hammers the nail in the coffin!······]
“Sììììì-!”
“He’s really insane···!”
“That crazy bastard!”
The moment I Jian’s third goal went in, the Fiorentina players watching the broadcast cheered and clicked their tongues at the same time.
A talent so astonishing it was unbelievable that such a guy had been the youngest in their team.
They looked like they wanted to brag everywhere that they had run with such a guy, but the moment I Jian took off his shirt.
When the purple undershirt was revealed from beneath it, the brothers couldn’t hide their choked-up emotions.
“That! That!”
“That lovely bastard! That’s a message to us, right?”
“We see it! We’re seeing it!”
They were the Viola, who couldn’t not know the meaning of purple.
The most excited was Coach Vincenzo, who had thrown decorum out the window.
“I told you! Getting hit by Man City hurt more than losing to Bayern! I told you!”
It was an incredibly childish proxy revenge, but if it was refreshing anyway, that was OK.