Chapter 8: Interim Manager (2)

People in Burnley often say there are only two types of people in the town: current Burnley Football Club fans (alive) and former Burnley Football Club fans (no longer alive).

In a town of 70,000, they built a 20,000-seat stadium—a small community utterly mad about football. (In the days of standing terraces, it could even hold 50,000!)

Fortunately, both Helena and Hyung-Min were relatively unknown in Burnley, so the other patrons at the Starbucks merely glanced at the two outsiders—who looked like tourists—without approaching or striking up conversation.

Though Helena wasn't entirely confident in the skills of the British barista manning a rural Starbucks, she ordered a Grande Iced Caramel Macchiato nonetheless. Savoring the taste of civilization filling her mouth, she gazed across at the young Asian interim manager sipping an iced Americano.

"Congrats on your first win, Coach Kim."

"Thanks. But it's just one game I've taken charge of."

Hyung-Min scratched the back of his head sheepishly at Helena's compliment, catching her off guard.

"Wait, you haven't heard yet?"

"Heard what?"

Helena cautiously scanned their surroundings, confirming no one was close enough to eavesdrop, and lowered her voice.

"Well… there's a slight, I mean, a *tiny* hiccup with appointing a new manager."

For example, the tiny hiccup that every candidate on the list had turned them down, she muttered inwardly.

"A tiny hiccup?"

"Yeah. Anyway, it'll probably get sorted soon, but in the meantime, I'll need Kim to step up a bit more."

"Uh… I just want to clarify—by 'step up,' you mean directing the first team for the next game too, right?"

"Yes, exactly. You did great last game, so just keep doing that."

Hyung-Min let out a sigh.

"Alright, I get it."

"You don't seem too thrilled. Don't you want to be the first-team manager, Kim?"

"I'd like to someday, but taking it on suddenly as a complete rookie feels overwhelming. At this level, I haven't even properly managed a youth team game yet."

Helena smiled at the young interim manager's candid admission.

"That's fair, but do you know what my family says in times like this?"

"What's that?"

"*Enjoy it while it lasts.*"

Hyung-Min chewed over her words, nodding slowly.

"Hm, that's a good one."

"Right?"

"So, Helena, have you had something like that happen?"

"Of course!"

Helena playfully winked one eye, prompting Hyung-Min to ask,

"Uh… could you tell me about it sometime, if there's a chance?"

"Oh, it's not that big a deal."

Helena's face softened with a wistful smile as she recalled the memory.

"Right after graduating college, I joined the family fund as the CEO's dumb daughter. I insisted on tagging along with a director dispatched to normalize a failing mine we'd acquired in the middle of the Amazon—wanted to get some field experience."

Giggling, Helena continued.

"But get this: the day we arrived in Brazil, John—the director sent to manage it—poor guy, got hit with acute appendicitis and had to be urgently shipped back to the U.S. And Cartwright Fund didn't have anyone else to send right away. Being a family office, we don't exactly keep a big staff."

"Uh, what's a family office?"

"Hm… it's what they call funds run family-style. Not that it's *only* family working there, but compared to Wall Street's bulge-bracket investment banks, we're much smaller."

Hyung-Min didn't quite know what "bulge-bracket" meant but assumed it referred to big banks and nodded.

"Thanks to that, I ended up learning Portuguese, mining, production management, HR, restructuring, and distressed company turnarounds all at once in the middle of the Amazon. Did I sleep maybe two hours a day?"

Helena let out a self-deprecating, incredulous smile.

"I'd just graduated college, and from morning to night, I'd meet people nonstop, making decisions on stuff I knew nothing about. At night, I'd cry while digging through data to check if my daytime choices were right. In the middle of the Amazon, if we hadn't had satellite internet, I might've actually lost it."

"So, did you save the mine?"

"Nope. It completely tanked!"

Helena burst out laughing at Hyung-Min's startled expression.

"There was a reason it was failing! A mine's done when the reserves run dry. No matter how much you cut costs or boost productivity, it just doesn't work. In the end, we let all the miners go and shut it down."

Stirring the remnants of her iced caramel macchiato with a straw, Helena went on.

"My God, do you know how many types of paperwork you need to file to close a mine? I was slogging through translations into Portuguese for the Brazilian government, fighting bureaucrats and lawyers… When it was finally over, I went back to a hotel room in Brasília, cried, and downed a whole bottle of cachaça alone—realizing even Dad's instincts can be wrong sometimes, a valuable lesson."

Unsure what to say, Hyung-Min hesitated before picking what seemed like a safe topic.

"What's cachaça?"

"It's a type of rum from Brazil, made from sugarcane… I'll send you a bottle sometime if I get the chance."

Seeing Hyung-Min's still-gloomy face, Helena smiled.

"It's okay, really. It's all in the past. The last nightmare I had about that mine was over five years ago."

Noticing Hyung-Min's face pale slightly, Helena grinned.

"But what I'm proudest of is that I somehow scraped together funds to give severance to all the laid-off miners and managed to find new jobs for most of them. You can't always succeed, but you can at least treat the people who suffered with you right. If a new manager comes in, Kim, I'll make sure to secure you that youth team job!"

"Uh, that sounds like you'd prefer me back in the youth team role?"

At Hyung-Min's slightly prickly retort, Helena chuckled.

"*Enjoy it while it lasts.* You never know what's coming."

---

"*Enjoy it while it lasts.*"

Muttering to himself while pondering the next game's strategy in the meeting room, Hyung-Min caught Arthur's glance from beside him.

"You sick or something?"

"No. Just trying to enjoy the moment."

"The board picked a new manager?"

Arthur's snide remark sparked irritation, but Hyung-Min suppressed it.

"No. I'm just focusing on the next game."

"Hmph. Well, even if the board picks someone tomorrow, it'd be too late for the next match, so you're stuck directing it anyway."

Amid the phantom echoes of *"you runt"* ringing in his ears, Hyung-Min tried to focus on the tactics board in front of him.

---

Among the many clubs in London, Brentford Football Club stands out for its unique operating philosophy.

Though Brentford was a newcomer, achieving promotion to the Premier League for the first time since its rebranding from England's First Division, it was better known for owner Matthew Benham's distinctive approach.

A lifelong Brentford fan, Matthew Benham—a professional gambler and statistics devotee—advocated a radical departure from football norms, insisting on building teams through rigorous stats and analysis.

In 2012, when his struggling hometown club languished in the third tier and faced bankruptcy, Benham took over at the fanbase's desperate plea.

The new owner declared that Brentford couldn't compete with richer, more storied rivals using conventional methods.

What followed shocked the football world: he abolished the traditional reserve and youth teams, opting instead for a B-team system, mirroring the "Moneyball" approach Oakland pioneered in American baseball.

Over the next eight turbulent seasons, Brentford steadily climbed to the second tier, stabilized, and finally achieved their long-awaited Premier League promotion in the 2020/21 season.

After enduring years of hardship to reach the top flight, Brentford's opening match was an away game at Brighton, delaying their chance to showcase Premier League football to home fans.

Drawing their first match, Brentford's next opponents were Burnley—a club with a far longer Premier League tenure but currently considered a step below in strength.

Brentford's club, staff, and players were determined to mark their emotional first Premier League home game in front of their fans with a win against Burnley.

Of course, Hyung-Min couldn't care less about Brentford's historic moment or resolve, focusing entirely on imprinting his tactics onto Burnley.

"As expected, Brentford's lining up with Bryan Mbeumo and Ivan Toney as a two-striker pair, Vitaly Janelt, Frank Onyeka, and Christian Nørgaard in midfield, Bruno Valdez, Kristoffer Ajer, and Pontus Jansson in defense, and Rico Henry and Mads Roerslev as wing-backs in a 5-3-2 formation."

Thirty minutes before kickoff.

The faint sound of home fans belting out Brentford's anthem filtered through the away team locker room walls as Hyung-Min calmly gathered the squad for a final tactics review.

"Brentford will have eight players—3-3-2—controlling the center, with their wing-backs running the sidelines up and down. Those wing-backs are their main attacking outlets, so stopping them is key. If they shift the ball out wide, Dwight and Charlie handle the left, while Jay and Matt lock down the right."

Left winger Dwight McNeil, left-back Charlie Taylor, right winger Jay Rodriguez, and right-back Matt Lowton—all slated to start—nodded.

"The midfield needs to help out too. Like last game, if we press up top, the ball will go out to the flanks. Neutralize those two wing-backs, and we're fine. Toney and Mbeumo are good strikers, but they're a notch below Everton's Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who we shut down last time."

At Hyung-Min's words, center-backs Ben Mee and James Tarkowski—who'd limited Everton's Dominic Calvert-Lewin to a 5/10 rating last match—nodded confidently.

"They're not tough opponents. If we stay focused, we can finish this easily!"

"Alright, let's do it!"

As the manager wrapped up, captain Ben Mee stood, rallying the team.

"For ever and ever! Who are we?"

"We are Burnley!"

The Burnley players responded, steeling themselves.

And the match unfolded like magic, exactly as Hyung-Min had predicted.