Became The Premier League’S Youngest Manager [EN]: Chapter 45

45. Ready to Leap Again

Helena crossed her arms and glared at Hyungmin.

“Where on earth did you get this cheap whiskey?! Goodness, you’ll go blind drinking this stuff!”

“…?”

Arthur had no idea that his prized whiskey, secretly stashed away for ‘medicinal purposes,’ was being thoroughly trashed. Helena, leaving a dumbfounded Hyungmin in the office, returned with a glass and a bottle of whiskey from somewhere.

The box alone was covered in gold leaf.

The shape and label of the bottle exuded dignity, boasting that it was a supreme special product.

Helena effortlessly opened the seemingly complex bottle cap and filled two glasses with the rich, golden liquid inside.

“Cheers!”

Before a bewildered Hyungmin could gather his wits, Helena had already settled on the sofa opposite him, raising her glass and exclaiming.

“Um… that’s great, but where did you get this?”

Hyungmin asked, examining his glass.

“This? Mike hid it deep in his office cabinet, saying he’d drink it when there was something special to celebrate later.”

“What?!”

Helena, having raided the former club owner’s prized possession, chuckled.

“I was so tempted when I saw it back then, and thanks to you, I get to drink it now. This is an incredibly limited edition, with only a few bottles produced each year. You can’t get it just with money.”

“Why is this thanks to me?!”

“If our first team coach is sobbing and drinking alone, I couldn’t possibly leave him be, so Mike can’t say anything,” Helena winked at Hyungmin.

“Thanks to you, Kim.”

“No, I wasn’t sobbing… Sigh…”

Hyungmin sighed, watching his boss, the club’s CEO, gleefully planning to drag him along. He brought the glass in his hand to his lips.

“…!”

He was no connoisseur of alcohol, but he could definitely tell that this was on a different level than what he had tasted earlier.

“Hehehe. Right? Throw away that medical alcohol.”

Arthur suffered another mysterious defeat.

Hyungmin slowly emptied his glass, his expression unreadable as he savored the whiskey—or swallowed poison, barely wetting his lips.

Helena, who had emptied her glass much faster, refilled it and asked,

“Kim, you really can’t drink?”

“Ah… I’m not good with alcohol. I’ve hardly ever drunk before.”

“Not even when you were younger?”

The club’s CEO spoke as if it were a long time ago, even though she was only a few years older than him.

Hyungmin, refraining from saying, ‘I’m still young,’ glared at her slightly and took another sip of the golden liquid in his hand without answering.

As if understanding his gaze, Helena chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“You’re funny.”

“…?”

Seeing Hyungmin tilt his head, Helena laughed again.

“That! Just now!”

“What?”

“You want to say something, but you’re holding back because I’m nice. That’s exactly the expression you have.”

Hyungmin wore an incredulous expression, yet he unconsciously stroked his face, which had begun to flush red.

“Is that so?”

“Well… I don’t know about others, but you definitely have it, Kim.”

Seeing Helena pour another glass, Hyungmin raised an eyebrow, and Helena shrugged.

“Don’t worry too much. I can hold my liquor. My whole family are heavy drinkers, so every year at the Christmas party, we drink so much that we can’t even get up the next day.”

As the relatively ‘younger’ club CEO wore a softer expression than usual, Hyungmin asked,

“Don’t you miss your family?”

“Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. It’s like, when we’re apart, I miss them a lot, but when we actually meet, we get tired of each other in less than a week? It’s nice to have some distance.”

“I see.”

At Hyungmin’s intrigued tone, Helena chuckled and said,

“Instead of that, tell me about you, Kim.”

“About me?”

“I’ve talked a lot about myself. Tell me about you. How did you start playing soccer?”

“Ah, soccer…”

A strange silence enveloped the office at Helena’s question.

Before Helena, who thought she had brought up a simple topic, could feel embarrassed, Hyungmin, who was tilting the whiskey glass in his hand, spoke in a slightly tipsy voice.

“I still remember the first day I touched a soccer ball. I was eight years old, and Seoul was covered in concrete. The ball bounced several times on the hard concrete, and it was so cool.”

For a moment, a bright expression appeared on the face of the gentle young Asian coach, and Helena sat across from him without saying a word, taking a sip of the whiskey in her glass.

“So I played soccer. Every day during breaks at school, I would run out and kick the ball, and when school was over, I would skip my after-school lessons and gather kids to kick the ball in empty lots or parking lots.”

Hyungmin made a small gesture, as if trying to gather the kids again.

“Eventually, my parents, unable to watch any longer, gave me permission, so I went to a middle school with a soccer team. It’s difficult to choose the school you want in Korea, so my whole family moved next to that middle school.”

“So you were good at soccer?”

Hyungmin shook his head at Helena’s question.

“I was terrible. Or, maybe not that bad? I barely made the starting lineup as a defender, and that was only because there were no left-footed players, so I reluctantly practiced my left foot and got a chance to play as a left-back. In Korea, youth coaches put kids who are good at soccer as forwards and kids who are bad at soccer as defenders.”

Hyungmin smiled bitterly and took a sip of whiskey.

“I was always worried about what would happen if a left-footed defender came along… Still, every time I got to play soccer, every time I got to play in a game, I felt like I could fly.”

As Hyungmin fell into silence, whether from intoxication or memories, Helena asked quietly,

“Then how did you become a coach?”

“Well… fortunately or unfortunately, left-footed defenders are very rare in Korea, so just being a defender who could use his left foot reasonably well was enough to get me into a high school with a decent soccer team.”
A small sigh and longing followed.

“There was a forward my age there, a friend who had been selected for all the youth national teams and was already rumored to be called up to the senior national team.”

“Were you good friends?”

Helena asked with a smile.

However, at her question, Hyungmin lowered his eyes and remained silent for a long time.

Just as Helena was about to speak again, thinking he might have fallen asleep, Hyungmin opened his tightly closed lips.

“…I envied him so much I wanted to kill him.”

“…!”

Helena struggled to hide her shock at Hyungmin’s chewed-out words.

As if deliberately avoiding looking at Helena’s face, Hyungmin fixed his gaze on the golden liquid swirling in his glass.

“When we won games thanks to that friend, I was so happy, but every time he playfully broke through me during practice, making me realize my limits, I hated him. But back then, I didn’t even know it was jealousy or hatred. Whenever I had a hard time, I just comforted myself by thinking, ‘I’m glad he’s not on the opposing team.'”

Hyungmin sighed and, still not looking at Helena’s face, fixed his gaze on the rainy window outside and continued.

“Anyway, thanks to that friend, we achieved good results in the national tournament, and I just piggybacked on that and somehow managed to get into a university with a decent soccer team as a special admission student. As a backup player who wasn’t special or outstanding but could fill a difficult position.”

Hyungmin took a sip of the dark golden whiskey.

“But before I even officially enrolled, I was called up for the soccer team’s winter training… In the first practice match, I collided with another player and shattered my knee.”

Hyungmin chuckled.

“But if I had just stayed lying down, I might have been able to save my knee, but the coach told me not to exaggerate and forced me to get up and run again.”

“…Oh my god.”

Helena muttered, shocked.

“It took me over two years to walk on two feet again. Fortunately, the person who operated on me the first time was quite skilled, so he preserved as much of the nerves and muscles as possible. Korean men all go to the military for about two years, and I exchanged my rehabilitation time for military service. Of course, after hearing stories from my friends later, it seems like military service and rehabilitation are equally painful.”

Hyungmin tried to put on a self-deprecating smile.

“And then I enrolled in the university I was originally going to as a regular student. But I had only played soccer my whole life, so I couldn’t focus on studying. And every time I went to school, I saw the soccer team practicing. The place where I should be is there. On that green grass…”

Hyungmin gestured towards the practice field outside the window.

“The classroom, that school, was so stifling, but I couldn’t give up soccer, so I started applying to schools in Europe without any plan. Sports science, sports management, sports coaching, any major that was even slightly related to sports, hoping that something would work out.”

Hyungmin took another sip of the dark liquid from the glass in his hand.

“Then, I was suddenly accepted into a sports coaching program in England. It was a school I had never heard of before, but it was a strange program that combined university classes and UEFA licenses [Union of European Football Associations licenses, certifications for football coaches] in conjunction with the English Football Association. When I sent them my story, they even gave me a small scholarship. So I immediately flew to England.”

‘That’s all,’ Hyungmin shrugged, and Helena asked, puzzled,

“Then what’s this about you getting first place in the coaching course run by the German Football Association, the DFB [Deutscher Fußball-Bund]?”

Hyungmin was startled and looked up at Helena.

“How does Helena know that?”

“Hmph, investigating is my specialty. It’s essential to thoroughly investigate Hyungmin’s background before appointing him as the official coach.”

At Helena’s words, Hyungmin seemed suddenly pleased and replied with a much brighter face.

“When I was in England, I went to school on weekdays to study for my UEFA license, and at night and on weekends, I went around to local clubs to work as a coach or manager.”

Something that could be called respect appeared on Hyungmin’s face.

“Even though the clubs were all amateurs or semi-pros with separate jobs, I thought it would be nice if even a novice like me could help them with their passionate soccer.”

Hyungmin chuckled.

“So I studied during the day and tried to implement what I learned through them at night… I did a lot of ridiculous things. I didn’t even have the ability to judge what worked and what didn’t at that level.”

Helena realized that the trial and error and experience he had accumulated there allowed him to give instructions tailored to the players’ level and create team-based tactics.

Unaware of her gaze, Hyungmin continued to talk, lost in happy memories.

“I obtained my UEFA C and B licenses in order, and then I heard about the Hennes Weisweiler Academy run by the German Football Association. I only heard that it was a really great program, and I didn’t even know that someone like me wasn’t qualified, so I applied and took the exam.”

“But you passed the exam, right?”

At Helena’s question, Hyungmin shook his index finger at her.

“Hmph. Taking exams well is a Korean trait.”

“Trait…?”

“Ethnic trait. Koreans are good at taking exams. Regardless of the type, we’re good at exams. Anyway, we’re only good at exams.”

‘Is that even possible?’

Helena wore an absurd expression but urged him to continue the story.

“So what happened?”

“The DFB was in chaos. Originally, I should have been disqualified from the document screening because I didn’t have a UEFA A license, but there was an administrative error, so I accidentally made it to the exam. But my exam scores were in the top tier.”

Hyungmin chuckled, half drunk and half genuinely amused.

“In the end, the DFB forcibly ruled that if you include all the experience from the local clubs I was coaching on weekends, which were registered in amateur or semi-pro leagues, it would be enough to obtain a UEFA A license.”

Hyungmin pointed to his head with one hand, pretending to be out of his mind.

“So I was forcibly awarded a UEFA A license and finally accepted into the academy. I think the DFB didn’t want to admit they had made a mistake. I didn’t even know it was a 90-day intensive program when I applied.”

“So?”

Hyungmin, excited, waved his hand and explained.

“Well, I was excited and went to Germany to complete the program. I was going to take a leave of absence from school, but since it was a course linked to the UEFA license, they said they would recognize what I studied at the Hennes Weisweiler Academy, so my scholarship remained the same. Anyway, I had enough money to eat three meals a day. I crashed here and there for sleep. For a few weeks when the weather was nice, I even stayed at a campsite.”

Hyungmin wore a dreamy, ecstatic expression.

“It was really great. Except for eating and sleeping, no, even while eating, there were 20-30 people with a fanatical passion who only talked about soccer all day long, studying, discussing, and studying again, and discussing again, and then studying again, and discussing again…”

Helena, wearing a slightly bored expression, quickly moved Hyungmin on to the next story.

“…So that’s how you got first place there.”

“Well, I had nothing else to do but study. Even those friends gathered on weekends to play soccer together, but I couldn’t play in the games because my knee was in this state. So I coached them when they gathered.”

As if remembering something, Hyungmin, who was excited, emptied his glass and shouted quietly.

“Ah, but those guys really didn’t listen! They all said their tactics were right, and they cursed at each other and fought with me even during the game!”

Helena chuckled.

“Hehe. Experts don’t listen to others very well.”

“That’s so true! Anyway, I completed the program and got my pro license, and one of the friends I made there was a friend who worked at Red Bull Football Group. So I got a recommendation from that friend and went to RB Salzburg’s youth team as a coach.”

‘So that’s how I went to Salzburg,’ Hyungmin shrugged.

“Then did you reconcile with the friend who was with you in high school, the forward?”

Helena asked cautiously.

“There was no reconciliation or anything. That friend didn’t know my feelings very well. It’s strange, isn’t it? Originally, if someone has so much, they might ignore the people around them, but that friend was very kind. I was injured and undergoing rehabilitation, and one day he suddenly came to visit.”

Hyungmin shook his head.

“He said he heard about it. He said he was curious about how I was doing and came to see me. And then he stayed by my side all day while I was rehabilitating. Back then, that friend was also a freshman in college, so he must have been busy enjoying his school life or solidifying his position on the team. That’s when I gave up. Ah, this person is someone I shouldn’t compare myself to…”

“What happened to that friend?”

“He was soon called up to the national team… and soon scouted by a professional team and became a successful professional player in Korea… Later, he also played in Japan and the Spanish Primera Liga [the top professional football division of the Spanish football league system]… His performance was decent. But… as he got older, his career became more and more difficult… He recently returned to Korea.”

As Helena smiled slightly, Hyungmin, with a face that was gradually turning red as he became fully intoxicated, waved his hands in the air, his words becoming increasingly slurred.

“Anyway… After that… I was with Red Bull… then I came to Burnley… Helena knows all about it…”

Hyungmin, whose words were becoming increasingly incoherent, finally buried his head in the sofa, where he was already half-lying down.

Helena watched the club’s young coach, drunk on the weight of the present and the memories of the past, and slowly emptied her glass without saying a word for a while.

Finally, she picked up the glass that had fallen from Hyungmin’s hand onto the floor and placed it on the table, then closed the bottle cap again.

Fortunately, the glass was already empty, so only ice fragments had fallen on the carpet.

“Sleep well, Hyungmin.”

Looking down at the coach sleeping on the sofa, Helena turned off the lights and carefully left the manager’s office.

And the next morning.

Helena, as if she had been waiting, aggressively confronted Hyungmin, who was clutching his head as if suffering from a hangover.