Kicking it with K League hopeful Seoul Calcio FC

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Kicking it with K League hopeful Seoul Calcio FC

Published: 07 May. 2024, 11:40 Updated: 08 May. 2024, 10:50

Mary, left, scores her first and, let's be real, only goal of a one-versus-one drill at training with Seoul Calcio FC — and does it with an unfounded amount of glee. [SEOUL CALCIO FC]

I’ll be honest: I was afraid of the ball. In my two or three seasons as a perpetual sideline surfer in our town’s youth soccer* league, I could be counted on to run in a sort of circular path out of harm’s way as the world’s most directionally challenged defender.

I’d swear to my coach and my parents I wasn’t, but actions — or my stunning lack thereof — speak louder than words.

One year a coach put me in goal for a couple of games (to my parents’ distress) — which made it exponentially harder to pass off my fear of the ball as “finding space on the field.”

I announced my retirement from the sport a year into high school (told my parents I wouldn’t be signing up for another season) but I’ve always admired anyone athletic enough to make the team at school, and I dabbled in a bit of intramural soccer with a couple of student groups at university. Only because they required each team to field at least two women.

Mary, left, unintentionally reverts to some of her youth league tactics — creating space as an excuse to avoid the action. [SEOUL CALCIO FC]

(Let's deal with the elephant in the room — the Korea JoongAng Daily, like the majority of the world, rigidly prefers the word football. I have reverted to soccer above because that's what it was in the rose-tinted days of my youth. From here on out I will conform to the football-loving masses.)

Maybe there was a part of me that always wanted to be a professional, or at least semi-elite, *football* player. Real players move up and down the pitch with a style and ease, steeze, that has galvanized generations of stadiums. The hundreds or thousands of based-on-a-true-story movies are proof enough of how we’ve romanticized the sport across time.

Joining the club

So when I get an Instagram ad about a free one-day training with a new club here in Seoul, Seoul Calcio FC, the “Good Sport” try-anything-once mandate plus my long held do-it-for-the-bit mindset implore me to go.

I trade a few messages with Italian coach Matteo Cerica, who brandishes his UEFA B license in the bio, to make sure I’m not getting catfished. The page, whose posts begin in March, looks at least kind of legit.

The day of the training rolls around, and I’m late. It’s spring in Seoul, although it feels like summer, but the air quality says Moderate, and a win is a win.

I check the infographic coach Matteo sent a few days earlier via Kakao. We’ve been asked to wear a white T-shirt, which I’ve not, so I stop and buy a T-shirt (supporting a California high school softball team?) from a shop at Hapjeong Station in western Seoul before hopping on Line 2.

I make it on time (10 minutes early!) to Jamwon Hangang Park in southern Seoul. It takes one transfer and a bus to get me to the side of a highway overpass, where a spiral staircase awaits to take me down to the river path.

There’s a calm on this patch of the Han, across from a wall of buildings that look sort of like Italy’s Amalfi coast. I dance around picnic blankets and small, leashed dogs toward a dusty pitch where a few middle school boys are punting shots into a goal, near a much larger man with a whistle.

Mary's interpretation of Seoul's version of Italy's Amalfi coast at Jamwon Hangang Park in southern Seoul. She agrees it's a bit of a stretch. [MARY YANG]

Is this it? I spot a few clusters of people in the shaded area on the sidelines, and there are a few women wearing white T-shirts sitting on a blanket.

It is, I confirm, when I match the man with the whistle, Matteo, to his profile on social media.

I wait around and take in my surroundings — bikers, joggers, basketballers on the court next to our sand pitch, film cameras, foldable tables, beers and babies — before Matteo calls the kids over to where myself and the other women are waiting on the sidelines.

He gives a post-practice speech, saying something about how the boys have improved a lot, while their parents stand off to the side snapping pictures with their phones. Matteo gives each player a banana, along with an iron-on Seoul Calcio crest — I notice that Matteo has already pressed one onto his black T-shirt.

Matteo, right, high-fives a youth player. [SEOUL CALCIO FC]

Then it’s time for the women’s training — the last of the free one-day sessions. Three guys showed up to the men’s training a day earlier, while one went to the wrong place.

Among the four of us women, one girl, wearing glasses, is a graduate student from Morocco. Another, also wearing glasses, is an Italian expat and is a friend of Matteo’s who has been cajoled into coming out for a game of footy. The third woman looks the part, with a KFA shirt and neon orange boots. She’s been at a Korean women’s futsal club for about a year and wanted to finally give football a try. I got my boots at a thrift shop (a tremendous find) for 20,000 won ($15) a day earlier.

I am hoping more women show up. Four players don’t make a starting XI. Especially not when just one of us (not me) has actual skills. But Matteo later tells me that he only started advertising the training about a week in advance, so our squad stays a quad for the rest of the afternoon.

Checks and bounces

As is standard for any team training, we start with warmups. Matteo demonstrates each one, up the line of mini cones followed by a jog back, and I give him credit for getting in on the action.

All of the exercises are familiar to me, until Matteo calls one of us up to the front to help demonstrate a “body check” — jumping up sideways to meet your partner in the air with the gusto of meatheads greeting each other with a chest bump.

I feel like I’m in an open air bounce house, but accept the benefits this will have on my tolerance for brawls for the ball on the pitch.

Mary, left, prepares to leap up off the ground for a ″body check" that looks like a badly executed boogie. [SEOUL CALCIO FC]

We kick up a dust storm in warmups, after which we’re allowed a two-minute water break. I’m concerned about making it through the next hour forty-five, under the sun on a desertish pitch that I’ve dramatized as the Sahara. All I’ve had to eat all day is a sandwich and an apple, and it appears I’ve not learned from previous bouts with dehydration as I try to conserve my two bottles of water.

But greatness isn’t made in Central A/C, so I put on a game face to join the group for the next thing.

We’re getting the balls involved for passing practice, but Matteo tells us to use — our hands? It’ll help us get used to the motion, Matteo explains, although I’m not sure we’re being instilled with the right rules.

What looks like a game of beach volleyball is actually one of the building blocks for proper football technique at Seoul Calcio. [SEOUL CALCIO FC]

Mary tries her hand at the passing drill. [SEOUL CALCIO FC]

So we popcorn the ball, zipping around to change up our spots not unlike the scene on the pick-up basketball court on the other side of the fence, before we finally graduate to using our feet.

Matteo shells out instructions on how to pass and receive the ball. I will be honest again: The technical jargon goes over my head. Something about trying to avoid full stops and following through with the momentum of the ball.

Mary gets creative with ways to miss the ball. [SEOUL CALCIO FC]

We pass and zip before we’re due for a bit of refinement, though I’m very much still in crude form. Matteo tells us to point one foot toward the target while kicking the ball with the other.

Mary lines up her shot. [SEOUL CALCIO FC]

This is a basic skill, but one I forget to employ as we continue to zip to the sound of the incessant coughing of one of the players who has been afflicted by either dust or pollution — or a prolonged period of physical activity. (I don’t judge, as this series has compelled me to get back in the gym.)

My execution expectedly falls short, and Matteo calls it out, reminding me to set up my shot. I am impressed with his patience as one of us (me) flounders and someone else (unnamed player) has a coughing fit.

I welcome a break for water.

Space and time

Two of the players throw on pinnies and head to the sidelines of a mini pitch Matteo has outlined with the cones, perpendicular from the goal. (We don’t actually use the goal at all during this practice, which frankly I’m okay with, as I’m not sure we deserve to.)

Ara, the futsal fiend, and I are in the middle, and we’re scrimmaging one-on-one. The pinnie wearers shift up and down the sidelines to help whoever has possession.

As Ara is the only one among us with actual skills, I suffer a resounding defeat. Every time I inch close enough to score, Ara steals the ball away. Ara 17-1 Mary, probably.

Mary, center, vies for possession! [SEOUL CALCIO FC]

Mary, right, loses possession. [SEOUL CALCIO FC]

Matteo has words for my defending (flashbacks to rec soccer) — I’ve been too parallel. Instead of standing directly in front of my opponent, he says, I should keep a diagonal stance.

“If you learn the relationship between space and time, football becomes very easy,” Matteo says. Bars.

Mary finds her space in the air. [SEOUL CALCIO FC]

We switch up positions, and I find myself in a familiar spot, the sideline, as it’s now my turn to be a double agent. I can’t be sure how much I’ve actually contributed to either side.

One final water break later — I’m down to my final drops — it’s time to play a real game. Or, two-on-two, but you work with what you have. I’m paired with Martina, Matteo’s friend, and I try to manifest some favoritism in the form of a partial ref.

Plotting. [SEOUL CALCIO FC]

Again, I shall be honest: We’re a bit of a mess. The rhythm begins to feel like a table tennis rally between absolute beginners. One person overshoots, and the other (me) is left to chase down the ball. Once, it rolls near a lone jogger whom I hope will come through with an assist, but I am let down. I get in my steps, overwhelmingly.

It also appears that some of the skills from the very first drill — the one where we passed with our hands — have bled into our game. A couple of the players insist on carrying the ball back from where it out-of-bounds-ed and placing it down onto the pitch.

A player places the ball back on the pitch after chasing it down. [SEOUL CALCIO FC]

It’s at this point that I try to remind myself: I’ve played this sport before, and I’m not that bad. Success is a state of mind, right? Once I decide this, I make marginal improvements and am more aggressive on the pitch — though I fear it may have been motivated by a bit of low-grade rage.

Mary chases after the ball with a burst of energy that must come from some innate survival instinct.

Mary attempts to embody the football greats, pointing her foot in the direction of the target and toward glory. [SEOUL CALCIO FC]

Hanger is taking over as the dominant emotion, and the looming heatstroke isn’t helping quell the flustration (fluster and frustration, according to Merriam Webster — don’t be a hero, don’t check) mostly with myself, as I struggle to put anything back.

I’m happy to say that all of this dissolves when practice mercifully comes to an end and we gather back under the shade. Matteo’s wife, who has been watching our practice, pulls out snacks and boxes of fruit that bring me to near tears. (Have I mentioned my proclivity to dramatize?)

Matteo, left, gives the women's players a post-practice speech while Mary dreams of a snack. [SEOUL CALCIO FC]

I remember the banana handouts the middle schoolers got before us and am hankering for a potassium boost.

Mary, right, is elated to have in hand a banana.

All is well.

‘It’s a story about my life’

A banana and a few orange slices later, I sit down for a chat with Matteo. I’m deeply intrigued to hear more about how he got here and the future of this club because, from the looks of today, he won’t have a particularly strong women’s side.

“It’s a story about my life,” Matteo says, when I ask him about Seoul Calcio.

He never played the game professionally — “I was not so talented as a player” — and his dream has always been to be a coach.

He moved to Korea with his wife at the end of 2022 and says he didn’t get many coaching offers. He found work in an academy, but that wasn’t what he was looking for.

He was in Italy over the Christmas holiday when he joked to his friends, who were complaining about their club, that they should make their own football team so they would stop — and then co-opted his own idea.

“Oh, maybe I should do too,” Matteo says, with a chuckle.

So he did, spending months learning the red tape about booking football pitches in Seoul and reading up about the rule changes to the K League, which in 2027 is set to unify its promotion-relegation system from the top-tier K League 1 to the amateur-level K7.

He says he wants to give the club a European, specifically Italian, identity. (It’s only when we sit down for this chat that I learn that “calcio” means football in Italian.)

Matteo, left, gathers the players before explaining a drill. [SEOUL CALCIO FC]

“When I came here, I see many, many difference between European football and Asian football in general,” Matteo says, adding that he thinks Asian football players (he previously coached a team in China) are more individually oriented while European players think more about the team.

He does single out Park Ji-sung as an exception, along with Son Heung-min “after a lot of years in Europe.”

Matteo says he plans to start classes and lessons in June. His dream is to meet twice a week for lessons and to have matches.

But he understands it’s very hard. (Lesson learned from us four on Day 1? Matteo actually corrects me and says it’s “Day Zero.") "Good things take time," he says.

The Korea JoongAng Daily's Mary Yang is on a mission to try her hand at any and every sport that will let her in the door. She can't promise skill or finesse, but she'll give it a good go.

BY MARY YANG [mary.yang@joongang.co.kr]