Two days later, a call came in from Porto. It was Abraham Marcus, the youth team director. He invited me and my father not to the reserve team's ground, but to Estádio do Dragão.
"We're here."
Stepping out of the car, FC Porto's home stadium — known as the Dragon Stadium — stood before us in all its grandeur. It felt noticeably different from when I'd come to watch as a kid. The hope that someday I might play on that pitch. That pleasant daydream made my heart race.
"Over this way."
My father and I entered the building attached to the side of the stadium. As we reached the lobby, trophy after trophy drew my eyes in every direction. Past them, an elevator waiting on the ground floor seemed to be expecting us. We headed straight for the office we'd been directed to over the phone.
"You're early. It's wonderful to see you again."
Marcus came out to greet us. Seated in the office, he was dressed in smart casual — polished and composed. Nothing like the figure from the training ground. More like a businessman. He moved toward the sofa in the middle of the office and invited us to sit.
"Coach Castro had been singing your praises from the start… but this time, the recommendation from first-team manager Conceição was particularly strong. And as you know, I was there to see it myself." "I should have been there — I've been feeling terrible about sending my son alone." "He didn't seem bothered in the slightest. Ha ha ha. Jino did brilliantly."
Abraham Marcus eased what could have been a tense atmosphere. Then he gave me a look that said — let's get to the point.
"Jino. We're going to be talking contracts, so it's fine to drop the formality, yeah?" "Sure." "Right. First — forget what I said when we first met. It was never meant to diminish your value." "I know. Please don't worry about it." "Do you have any idea how much grief Castro gave me that day?"
Smiling, he slid a few sheets of paper toward me. Not a contract.
"Oh — these are the physical test results?" "Have a look too, sir. Can you believe these numbers?"
The scores given by the coaches who had run the physical sessions were right there on the page. Every single category marked with a perfect ten. I'd been told on the day that it was the top result, but I hadn't expected it to be quite like this.
"The coaches were all stunned. Records like these are rare to come across at your age."
Marcus's praise set the tone for the conversation. He mentioned not only the physical test but also the goals from the 8v8 match. My father, who hadn't been there to see it, broke into a wide grin. But Marcus's conclusion ended with a "however."
"This next part might be easier to address to you directly, sir. We are Porto. Players with potential — we begin professional-level training with them from the age of thirteen."
It was a similar thread to what he'd said before. The difference was that this time it was coming up in the context of signing a contract. Where the coaches on the ground had focused purely on assessing my future, Marcus had other considerations to manage.
"Jino is, inevitably, a little late. Even accounting for what he showed, the club's position when it comes to written reports will naturally be different." "Oh… I see."
It was my father whose voice deflated. The words were closer to a negative than a positive.
"Sir — I'm not saying we won't be signing him. What I want to do is make a proposal that I can move forward with on my end." "Oh! Right. What would that be?"
The worry in my father's voice shifted back the other way.
"I'd like to proceed with a youth contract with Jino — no signing fee. Age group: U-18. Contract length: one year. The monthly wage would be around 800 euros. There are appearance bonuses, but they're not substantial." "Oh…" "Wow…"
My father and I opened our mouths at almost exactly the same moment. This wasn't a weekly wage. In Europe, most youth contracts worked on a monthly salary basis. 800 euros — roughly just over a million Korean won.
Seeing our reaction, Marcus slid a contract across the table.
"Professional contracts are typically signed at seventeen or eighteen anyway. Take this as a reference and have a look."
My father and I went through the clauses together. Everything matched what Marcus had said. It was a youth contract without many restrictions, so there was nothing particularly noteworthy to flag.
"It's only a one-year deal and the money isn't large — I expect you're a little disappointed?"
Hearing Marcus's words, my father gave my thigh a light slap.
"Jino, they're actually paying you?" "Exactly. And 800 euros at that." "I thought we'd at least be covering some expenses ourselves — this is something else."
Impolite as it was, we were talking to each other in Korean. We had no idea why Marcus had used the word "disappointed." We meant it. A signing fee hadn't even crossed our minds, and we'd been worried it might cost us a lot of money. But getting paid to play sport at sixteen — In America, even a university scholarship hadn't been a certainty. How remarkable was this.
"It seems the terms are even less to your liking than expected. I do apologize. That said, depending on how Jino performs, things will look very different in a year. Perhaps if you'd consider it… Or I could look at raising the salary slightly." "Oh…" "Wow… Damn."
We hadn't even said anything, and he was already offering to increase the amount. We were stunned again. Marcus pushed the contract to the side of the table.
"I really can't go any further than this. Let's wrap this up with a bit more attention to the individual bonuses. I'll have a new contract drawn up. Sandro — bump everything up by ten percent and print one out."
There seemed to be some kind of misunderstanding. Either way, we were happy with the contract, so I wanted to close things out before Marcus had second thoughts.
"Thank you. I'll give it everything I've got." "Good. Join training starting tomorrow."
I took Marcus's outstretched hand in mine. A fresh, newly printed contract was handed over, and my father picked up the pen. And just like that, I became a member of Porto's U-18 training setup.
The next day, I cycled the twenty minutes to Estádio Dr. Jorge Sampaio. My father had insisted he absolutely had to drive me on the first day, but I told him I appreciated the thought and declined. Honestly, the difference between driving and cycling wasn't that great. And I wanted to feel the pleasant Porto breeze as I rode.
You really never know where life takes you.
It had only been two weeks since we arrived here. Thinking back, what had happened to me was almost unbelievably fortunate. From stumbling into a training ground, to taking a test, to actually signing a contract with the club. Even so — the reason I hadn't let that luck slip away was my own ability.
Click-click! Whirr, whirr!
I shifted gears and pushed down on the pedals with everything I had. I crossed the Luís I Bridge that I passed through on the way to the training ground. Famous for its night views, it was just as beautiful now, bathed in the morning light.
"Yeeaahhh!"
I didn't care about the stares of the people around me. I let out everything I was feeling. It felt like I was finally sketching out the rough outline of my life. A new life beginning. The place marking that departure — Estádio Dr. Jorge Sampaio — appeared before me.
. . .
After getting through the administrative formalities on the first day, I stepped straight onto the training pitch. With all the players gathered together, Coach Castro called me to the front.
"Hello everyone. I'm Seo Jino. Looking forward to working with you all."
I gave my first introduction to the U-18 players. Among them, Fábio — who I had something of an acquaintance with by now — caught my eye. The others had watched my trial, and they clapped to welcome me as a new teammate.
"No further introductions needed. Get ready for training."
I'd heard it at the trial too, but Castro was set to move up to the reserve team before long. He was that caliber of coach. Particularly striking was how different he seemed in a professional setting compared to when he was more casual. He carried an impression of someone considerably strict.
Either way, the players moved immediately to begin warming up. I naturally paired off with Fábio. As we stretched lightly, Fábio kept talking. Nothing particularly deep — no questions about soccer either. Why did you come to Portugal, what's America like, do you have a girlfriend, that sort of thing. He put me at ease with everyday conversation. I asked questions when I was curious about something too.
"Thanks for that. By the way, how many strikers do we have?" "See that guy over there lacing up his boots? That's João Malek — he's the central striker." He wasn't one of the players I'd been on the pitch with during the trial.
"Anyone else?" "Right now, Malek's the only one you'd really call a goal scorer. The better players have moved up to the older age groups. The wide forwards have been rotating to fill that spot in the meantime." "So if it's the starting spot I'm after, he's the only one I need to get past." "Probably."
For now, the player I'd be measured against was João Malek. Keep it simple. To nail down the starting position on this team, all I had to do was get ahead of him.
"Everyone in! We're starting with a mini-game!"
The players gathered in sharp, unified movement. They positioned themselves in a diamond shape. Fábio gave me a shove from behind and pushed me to the front. Immediately, a fierce 5v5 battle broke out over a single ball. The purpose of the training was clear.
Relentless pressing in a tight space. Emphasizing tactical and technical elements under high-intensity conditions. With explosive, spontaneous movement on top of that.
Not that different.
It wasn't far removed from the exercises I'd already been doing. Using your feet was the key variable, but through this kind of training you could naturally pick up the most basic elements of soccer — trapping, keeping possession, short passing, and physical duels. The sort of fundamental drill every professional player runs through every single day.
Clang!
I drew on what I'd built up through futsal. The age group was different, so the difficulty couldn't be compared directly. But it didn't feel overwhelmingly hard.
Thwap! Tha-thwap! Thwap!
One-touch passes flew without pause. The moment you held the ball, you were surrounded. Knowing that, the players kept moving without the ball, sustaining the game. Even in that confined space, everything that needed to come out did. Forward to the side, side to side, back again. And then a through ball slipping between players. The final pass was finished off by Seo Jino's left-footed inside-of-the-foot shot.
"Nice goal!" "Clean finish!"
Seo Jino had slotted the ball into the small goal. Castro's attention went not to the result but to how it had come about. The three elements needed in a mini-game — give, receive, move. Simple to say, but anything but easy to execute.
He's good.
Castro allowed himself a satisfied smile. Of everything Seo Jino had done, what stood out most was this: without anyone showing him, he had found the natural channel for the pass himself. In passing situations, Castro always emphasizes triangles. Every pass, large or small, is built on the triangle as its foundation.
"Impressively sharp for someone nobody taught."
The easiest spot to receive in, the easiest to pass from. He was finding his way precisely to the vertex of the triangle.
Every player here had run drills like this mini-game hundreds, thousands of times. And yet, finding the right position in that tight a situation was not easy. On top of that, something Castro hadn't anticipated.
"He's handling the ball pretty well too." "Mm, yeah. He did futsal, apparently."
When Castro moved up to the reserve team, Dudu was set to take over the U-18 side. In what amounted to a handover period, they kept watching Seo Jino and talking about him.
"A lot of Brazilian players come from futsal backgrounds. There's no better sport for developing individual technique at a young age."
Clang!
"Oh!" "Look at that. A little rough around the edges, but there's some real footwork there."
Coming face to face with a defender in front of goal, Seo Jino leaned his body sharply to the left. The defender reacted and stuck a leg out prematurely. Seo Jino calmly rolled the ball with the sole of his foot and slipped past him.
Castro nodded at what he'd just seen. He'd felt it from the last time too — there was a real economy to his game. He seemed to play without feeling much pressure from the opposition's press.
Looking at the sports Seo Jino had played, it made sense. But that alone wouldn't make a soccer player. Whether he could fill in the gaps that remained — that was down to Seo Jino himself. Guiding him was the role of the coach.
What was certain was this: compared to the outstanding players Castro had coached over the years, the size of this talent was not a step behind.
"When can you send him to me?" "Surely he needs at least a year first, doesn't he?"
Castro stroked his chin. He thought it over, then spoke.
"Too long. Shape him up within six months and send him up. Time goes fast."