[The match is over. In the Nexia Football Legend Match, the Defender All-Stars claimed a 3:1 victory.]
“There it is!”
I cheered, having watched the match through to the end on my smartphone.
Kaka, Forlan, Shevchenko, Del Piero, Pirlo, Puyol, Casillas, Buffon, Van der Sar….
Football legends of that era whose very names made my chest swell with grandeur.
It was truly an incredible event—these players gathering in Korea after retirement to hold a legend match before sixty thousand spectators.
“If it weren’t for work, I’d have snagged a VIP seat ages ago and watched from there!”
“Vice Chairman, we’ll be arriving at the hotel shortly.”
“Ah, okay.”
I really, truly love football.
My father, who had built the Daeyang Group—then ranked within the top twenty in the business world—sent me to study in England, saying, *“Study in deeper waters,”* and I entered LSE (London School of Economics).
A bachelor’s degree only took three years, so it was smooth sailing. I’d been a football fan from the start, but it was there that I came to know the true taste of the sport.
Those were the days when I spent more time going to football matches than on assignments and exam prep.
And after completing my degree, I returned to Korea and joined management. There were three opportunities, but each time I had to fold due to my father’s stubbornness—ball sports, to him, meant only golf.
After that, I took on all the group’s practical work under my older brother, who merely held the chairman position, and grew the company to this level, but in the end, I couldn’t have a football team of my own.
“If I’d bought a club in Europe back then, I would’ve been the one hosting this legend match….”
All I could do was feast my eyes on the “Legend Match” hosted by Nexia, a game company famous for football games, and keep searching for related videos.
“Vice Chairman, we’ve arrived.”
“Ah, I see.”
Hotel staff came out personally, greeted me politely, and guided me inside.
The Hanyeong Hotel.
Located in Euljiro, this place was more comfortable to me than home.
As always, I entered the same room, washed up, put one of the cigarettes set out on the ashtray on the table into my mouth, lit it, and turned on the TV.
[Next in the news. Today’s Nexia Legend Match concluded successfully before sixty thousand spectators at the Sangam World Cup Stadium.]
Watching that legend match, with the greatest football legends in the world gathered there, made me feel like dying from regret.
Since I could mobilize roughly one trillion won on my own, maybe I should give it a shot even now?
“Honestly, if I’ve come this far, I should be allowed to do what I want to do now.”
It was something I’d muttered like a lament.
[Do you really want to? To be a football team owner?]
“Hm?”
Then, a voice from somewhere.
I turned off the TV and looked around, but I couldn’t see a thing.
“Who’s there?”
[I’ll ask once more. Do you truly want to take charge of a football team and become its owner?]
I stubbed out my cigarette and rose from my seat.
As I tried to pinpoint the source of the voice, it rang out again.
[Mr. Lee Daehyun, the opportunity to fulfill your lifelong wish comes but once. Do you truly want to have a football team of your own?]
“…Absolutely!”
[Then do it.]
“No, wait, but who are you….”
In that moment, I lost consciousness.
***
[The match is over! At the France World Cup, France defeats Brazil and seizes the World Cup!]
A calm yet strangely captivating voice.
Hearing that voice, my eyes snapped wide open.
[France’s first championship.]
“Bullshit, France won the World Cup twi… huh?!”
The giant LCD TV in the hotel was nowhere to be seen; instead, a football match with terribly old picture quality was being broadcast on a bulky CRT TV.
Zinedine Zidane and Fabien Barthez embraced each other, reveling in the joy of winning the World Cup, while Ronaldo was on his knees, sobbing.
I couldn’t forget it.
After all, I had booked a room at the Hanyeong Hotel instead of going home to watch that very match alone.
“Ah, wait a minute! What era is that match from, and they’re airing it?”
I hastily grabbed the remote and changed the channel.
[Following the news. At local time, July 12th, 21:00, the France World Cup final saw host nation France defeat Brazil to claim their first World Cup.]
[France’s first victory! The goddess of victory ultimately chose Zinedine Zidane.]
No matter where I looked, it was all talk of the France World Cup final, or else…
[Following the request for bailout funds, the government announced its desire for swift restructuring and business reform among the top ten conglomerates.]
[While unemployment has hit record highs, the dollar and pound are soaring day after day.]
1998. A year no Korean could ever forget.
To top it off, my phone was one of those old junk GSM phones with a green screen, befitting the era.
I had regressed.
I’d wished to run a football team, and as if saying “go ahead,” I’d been sent back to this time.
This was when I had just finished my life in England and received my father’s summons to work for the group.
And the IMF foreign exchange crisis that had been a catastrophe for the entire nation of Korea….
“You said you’d let me acquire a football team, so why this of all times!”
If only they had sent me back just one year earlier!
***
After rampaging around the hotel room alone for a while, I went outside, reminisced about the streets of that time, and returned to the hotel.
The only thing that had increased was the cigarette count; my head was still a mess.
But if I thought about it slowly, it wasn’t entirely impossible.
At this time, while working at the UK branch, I had received advice through a “connection” that the Korean economic system would be in danger later, so I should secure as much cash as possible.
So back then, I had amassed an enormous amount of foreign currency for the trade goods of Daeyang Trading, the group’s core affiliate.
They weren’t dollars, but pounds. Thanks to having accumulated foreign currency for trade with the United States, when the won-dollar exchange rate was hovering around 1,900 won, we possessed large quantities of British pound sterling at the exchange rate of 3,300 won.
And thanks to that merit, I had taken charge as the group’s restructuring director with virtually full authority.
“Come to think of it, back then I was only thinking five to ten years ahead, and I couldn’t distinguish between ‘things I shouldn’t sell’ and ‘things I should have sold then.’”
Thinking about that, I put another cigarette in my mouth.
“I just need to persuade Father. If I tell him I’ll do what I want right after solving the restructuring….”
My father, Chairman Lee Won-gyu of the Daeyang Group.
Born in Gyeongsan, Gyeongbuk in 1932, a Korean War veteran who built the present-day Daeyang Group starting from a civil engineering business with two trucks.
But when it came to ball sports, he only enjoyed golf—swinging a white ball across a vast field—and even now, while serving as “Chairman of the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup Organizing Committee” in Korean society, he was only interested in the construction of football-only stadiums and facility works.
The truth is, even while Father was alive, I had requested several times to operate a football team within the Daeyang Group, but his stubbornness—dismissing it as “nonsense” and saying “business is only about chimney factories that make tangible goods”—wore me out and made me stop.
And whenever I thought back to that time, I felt I had let it pass complacently, always thinking, *“There’s always next time,”* when I should have pushed harder.
“This time, no matter what happens, I’m becoming a football team owner. And I’m going to unconditionally acquire a European first-division league team and run it myself.”
Just like the oil-money royalty of Man City or Paris Saint-Germain! Like the chairman of Inter Milan who led his club with romance! Like that Russian owner of Chelsea who alone built his own team while dreaming of a hundred-year club!
I steeled my resolve and picked up the phone.
The recipient was the Daeyang Group’s UK branch.
[Ah, Director. What brings you to call?]
“Representative, while I’m handling the restructuring back home, please take on one special assignment in the UK.”
[What is it? Please tell me.]
“Right now, immediately, please look into all twenty clubs in England’s Premier League.”
[?]
Kim Eun-tae, the representative and head of the Daeyang Trading UK branch, was someone who had looked after me since my study abroad days and was the most trustworthy executive.
“Please analyze the current attendance figures of England’s twenty clubs, their in-stadium ancillary businesses and ticket sales, club merchandise sales status, and so on.”
[Ah, you’re preparing sports marketing ahead of the World Cup. Understood.]
It was fine for him to understand it only as that, so that I could verify it immediately upon my return.
Having laid the groundwork, I opened my notebook and prepared things one by one.
Until checkout that day, I wrote down everything about the group’s restructuring.
I was someone who had done this all before. And I was someone who knew the future over twenty-five years ahead.
***
I checked out roughly an hour early.
I was at the hotel when I came down after being summoned by Father, and a car was waiting right away.
“Director, allow me to escort you.”
Father’s executive secretary approached, opened the car door for me, and inside was Father.
Father, whom I was now seeing again in this time after he had passed away from illness in old age.
Seeing him again like this made me truly happy, but I couldn’t show it.
“Father….”
“You left the house saying you were going to watch some football match, and now I find you at a hotel—what have you been doing in there?”
“Ah, well… it’s… about the restructuring and future growth businesses for the group.”
Barely squeezing that out amidst my joy, Father clicked his tongue and put a cigarette in his mouth.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes, Chairman.”
The car was heading home.
It would take about ten to fifteen minutes from here.
As Father took heavy drags on his cigarette, I got to the main point.
“Father, I’d like to start a new business in Europe.”
“Haven’t you heard about the restructuring? If we don’t take care of everything by next year, our Daeyang will collapse entirely.”
“I can take responsibility for that and finish it all by the end of this year.”
“You have that much confidence?”
I took the notebook from inside my jacket and handed it to Father.
Father moistened his finger and turned the pages one by one; his eyes gradually grew wider.
“Once I’ve finished my work, there’s something I want to do in England. Please allow it.”
“Hrmm—let’s talk about it at home first.”
The car headed for the residence in Jangchung-dong.
In this life, I would definitely do what I wanted to do.
Namely, the life of a club owner building my very own football team starting from the nineties.