Became The Premier League’S Youngest Manager [EN]: Chapter 21

21. Ready to Leap

The afternoon after the match against Liverpool.

In Burnley, Lancashire, England, four teenagers were wandering around.

A 20-year-old midfielder, a 19-year-old midfielder, an 18-year-old midfielder, and a 19-year-old forward, all around 180cm tall with similar, sturdy builds.

It was Burnley’s four loanees, out for a stroll in town on their day off.

“Ugh, why did we bring him?”

Karim Adeyemi said, annoyed, pointing at Hannibal Mejbri, who was sighing repeatedly, taking a step, and then sighing again.

“Hey, he’s been staring at the wall since yesterday’s game. Should we have just left him there?”

Karim shook his head, irritated by Nicolas Seiwald’s response.

“Ugh, the coach said he’s fine. He should just shake it off and come out.”

“Yeah, right. You didn’t say a word for a week when you missed that penalty kick back in the day.”

“Tch!”

Karim Adeyemi bristled at his peer’s dredging up his embarrassing past.

Jacob Ramsey, the eldest of the group, chuckled as he watched their exchange.

“You guys really get along.”

“Whatever.”

Karim Adeyemi brushed off Jacob Ramsey’s comment, but he still felt a bit sorry for his dazed teammate, so he pointed to the McDonald’s in front of them.

“Hey, let’s grab something to eat there!”

“Are you crazy? If we eat that, Coach Morais will make us do a hundred sprints from hell!”

“Ugh, how would he know if we just ate one thing?”

“Are you kidding me? They do blood tests, blood sugar tests, body fat tests, weigh us every day… How could we hide that?!”

As Nicolas Seiwald retorted in disbelief, people nearby started turning their heads towards them, drawn by the noise the four teenagers were making.

Jacob Ramsey, ever the elder, picked up on the atmosphere and shook his head, saying quietly.

“Hey… shouldn’t we start heading back?”

“Why? Burnley doesn’t have much, but if training starts again tomorrow, we’ll be stuck in Padiham all the time.”

A town of 70,000 people with no bustling streets, but Padiham was an even smaller village.

Karim Adeyemi, already slightly fed up with Arthur and Hyungmin’s plan to ‘allow’ the loanees to focus solely on soccer in a place where there was truly nothing, grumbled, and Jacob Ramsey whispered.

“The atmosphere feels a bit weird…”

At his words, even Hannibal Mejbri, who had been lost in his gloom, lifted his head and looked around, only to find that sturdy Burnley youths were gathering around them with grim faces.

“W-what is it?”

“Is this some kind of vigilante group punishing outsiders?”

Nicolas Seiwald clicked his tongue at Karim Adeyemi’s words.

“Hey, did you stay up watching *Peaky Blinders* [a British period crime drama] again last night? It’s the 21st century, man.”

“Who knows? Who knows what could be in this rural English place?! I’m telling you…”

Jacob Ramsey cut off Karim Adeyemi.

“Okay, enough! Let’s just go inside somewhere!”

The other three, except for Hannibal Mejbri, who still hadn’t said a word, were arguing amongst themselves, unable to make a decision, when the biggest of the Burnley men stepped forward.

“Hey, you there.”

“Huh? Uh, yeah…?”

The young man pointed his finger.

“You’re Hannibal Mejbri, right?”

Tense from the young man’s stern expression, Nicolas Seiwald, Karim Adeyemi, and Jacob Ramsey hurriedly stood in front of Hannibal Mejbri, trying to block him from view.

“Nope?”

“…Seems like it, though?”

Jacob Ramsey, who had been about to deny it, flinched at the giant’s confident statement.

“W-what if I am?”

At Karim Adeyemi’s question, the young man said in a low voice.

“Come on out here.”

“Ah, can’t do that?”

“Ugh, get out of the way!”

As Karim Adeyemi tried to insist again that it couldn’t be done, Hannibal Mejbri, who had been silently listening to the conversation from behind, pushed past his teammates and stepped forward.

“I’m Hannibal Mejbri! What do you want?!”

“…Could you sign something for me?”

***

“Hey! Get in line properly!”

As the giant young man, who introduced himself as Henry Tyler, shouted, a curt shout came back from the back of the line, which was long enough to fill the road.

“Ugh, people keep pushing from behind!”

“Then hold your ground! Can’t even do that?!”

“Do you think I’m you?!”

The four Burnley loanees, sitting side by side at a table they had taken from McDonald’s without permission, continued to talk to the people in line, ignoring Henry Tyler, who was sweating and hoarse from managing the line.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Hannah! Hannah Johnson!”

“So, should I write, ‘To Hannah’?”

“Yes, please!”

A little girl who looked about six years old came with her dad and proudly held out her uniform, and Hannibal Mejbri wrote a nice autograph on the back with his jersey number and a greeting.

Karim Adeyemi, whose much shorter line had already finished, looked at Hannibal with envy and grumbled.

“Ugh, why is everyone only getting his autograph?”

“He scored in his debut game, after all.”

“That was my assist! I could have scored, but I passed it to him!”

“Eh, not really. You were clearly outside the penalty box.”

“Ugh…”

As Karim Adeyemi sulked at Jacob Ramsey’s remark, Nicolas Seiwald was kindly signing autographs next to them.

The handsome, tall, blond midfielder was quite popular with the women of Burnley.

Unfortunately for his own love life, older women were lining up in front of him, rather than young, pretty girls.

They liked that he was diligent and didn’t shy away from hard work, apparently?

“Oh, so what should I sign it to?”

“Liz. Sign it ‘To Liz.’”

Nicolas Seiwald smiled kindly at the woman in her late 50s who winked at him, signed the autograph, and even took a selfie with her, beaming.

“Wow, you’re really amazing. How do you put up with all that?”

“They’re fans. You have to give fans service. They’re the ones who pay our wages. Without fans, the club can’t exist.”

It was the moment when the true nature of Nicolas Seiwald, the upright young man from Austria, was revealed.

“Hey! What are you guys doing?!”

About two hours into the impromptu autograph session?

Just as the exhausted quartet was thinking that all the residents of Burnley, who were enjoying a rare sunny Sunday afternoon, must have gotten their autographs, a dumbfounded shout echoed from across the street.

Burnley’s new fitness coach, Paulo Morais, who seemed to be out grocery shopping with bags in his thick arms, was standing on the side of the road, staring at them in disbelief.

“Uh… Coach… well, you see…”

Where should they start explaining? No, was this even something that could be explained?

The four promising players, suddenly realizing the situation, looked at each other with cold sweat.

***

“So, they asked you to sign autographs, so you did?”

“Yes!”

“And then more and more people gathered, so you brought a table from McDonald’s while signing autographs…”

“We borrowed it! We borrowed it! We returned it!”

“…And then even more people lined up?”

The four promising players, standing in front of Helena’s desk, nodded desperately at Helena’s words.

Helena clicked her tongue in disbelief, and Nicolas Seiwald stepped forward.

“Ms. Cartwright…”

“Director.”

Nicolas Seiwald’s face paled slightly at Helena’s immediate correction of his title, but he continued undeterred.

“Uh, so, Director. This is like a fan service requested by Burnley fans… like a part of community outreach…”

“Okay, that’s enough.”

Helena, biting her lip and shaking her shoulders, pondered something for a moment, then finally gestured to wrap up the situation.

“First of all, it doesn’t seem like there were any problems or damages, so I’ll let it slide this time.”

“Thank you!”

The four answered brightly, expecting a smooth resolution.

“But all four of you are banned from going out for the time being!”

The four’s faces darkened again at Hyungmin’s punishment, who had been suddenly called in and was grasping the situation from the side.

“Okay, you can go now.”

The four Burnley loanees, their shoulders drooping, left the office following the guidance of Coach Paulo Morais, who had been monitoring the situation with his arms crossed and an imposing look on his face.

As the door closed, Hyungmin turned to Helena and said.

“Helena, I’m really sorry. I’ll talk to them…”

“Pwahahahaha!”

Helena, unable to hold back her laughter any longer, fell off her chair.

“Oh, are you okay?!”

“Pwahahahaha!”

Helena, rolling around on the floor under her desk, began to giggle in front of Hyungmin, who was staring in disbelief.

It was at this point that Hyungmin began to wonder if he should take the club’s CEO, who seemed to have lost her mind due to excessive workload and stress, to the emergency room or call the team doctor before she stopped breathing.

Helena, panting, propped herself up on her desk with trembling arms and crawled back onto her chair.

“Hoo… It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed like this.”

Helena, still catching her breath and chuckling for a while even after sitting back in her chair, said to Hyungmin.

“They’re really… really cute. No, is that the right word? Should I say they’re upright? They have no kinks in their personality, they’re not like kids these days.”

If Arthur had heard, he would have said, ‘You guys are kids these days too,’ but Arthur wasn’t here.

So Hyungmin could nod with a knowing expression.

“Good players aren’t always good people. But promising players with good character are much more likely to become good players. Soccer isn’t something you do alone, after all.”

“A spirit of sacrifice for your teammates, is that it?”

Helena asked, still chuckling.

“That’s part of it… But basically, if you have consideration for others, you can share your thoughts with others, and if you can do that, you can work together to solve the game together. After all, soccer is like solving a puzzle together to open the opponent’s goal.”

“A puzzle to solve together…”

Helena repeated Hyungmin’s words with an interested tone.

***

Anyway, the morning after the small but significant incident caused in the local community by the Burnley loanees adapting to a small club in the English countryside amid various happenings.

Helena, who came to work in the morning, immediately went to Mike Garrick’s office next to her own with a puzzled expression, carrying her laptop.

“Mike, what is this? It’s from the Premier League headquarters.”

Helena turned her laptop screen so that Mike Garrick could see it.

The screen showed an email, written in a stiff tone, directly requesting the attendance of Helena Cartwright, the agent of the Cartwright Fund.

“Owners’ and Directors’ Test?”