I became the Premier League’s youngest manager

Burnley people often say that there are only two types of people in Burnley: current fans of Burnley Football Club (alive) and past fans of Burnley Football Club (deceased).

It's a small town with a population of 70,000 that's crazy about soccer, to the point of building a 20,000-seat stadium (actually, back in the standing-room days, 50,000 people could attend!).

Fortunately, neither of them were well-known in Burnley, so other guests only glanced at the tourists and didn't really approach them to talk to them.

Although the skills of the British barista guarding the Starbucks in a rural town like Burnley were not trustworthy, Helena ordered a grande iced caramel macchiato anyway, savoring the taste of civilization filling her mouth as she looked at the young Asian interim manager sitting across from her, sipping an iced Americano.

"Congratulations on your first win, Coach Kim."

"Thank you, but I'm only in charge of one game."

In response to Helena's greeting, Hyungmin answered with an embarrassed look on his face, scratching the back of his head.

Helena was embarrassed by Hyungmin's answer.

"Oh, you haven't heard the story yet?"

"What are you talking about?"

Helena looked around cautiously, making sure no one was sitting close enough to overhear their conversation, and then lowered her voice.

"Um... there is a slight, very minor, difficulty in appointing a new manager."

"It's just a small complaint, like the fact that all the candidates on the list have rejected me," Helena muttered to herself.

"A small complaint?"

"Yes. Anyway, it will be resolved sooner or later, but in the meantime, I think Kim will have to work a little harder."

"Uh... I want to make this clear here. When you say 'hard work,' do you mean leading the first team in the next match as well?"

"Yes, that's right. You did well in the last game, so I think you should just do well like that."

Hyungmin sighed.

"Okay, I understand."

"You don't look very happy. Didn't Kim want to be the first-team coach?"

"I wanted to do it someday, but I feel a lot of pressure because I have to take on the role suddenly when I'm a rookie who doesn't know anything. I've never really been able to properly lead a youth team match at this level."

Helena smiled at the words of the young (temporary) manager who confessed honestly.

"That may be true, but do you know what we say in this situation in our family?"

"What are you saying?"

"Enjoy it while it lasts. Enjoy it while you can."

Hyungmin, who had been chewing on Helena's words, slowly nodded his head.

"Well, that's a good point."

"Isn't that so?"

"So, did that happen to Helena too?"

"Of course?"

As Helena playfully closed one eye, Hyungmin said.

"Uh... Could you tell me about it later, when you get the chance?"

"Oh, it's not that great."

Helena said with a faint smile, recalling old memories.

"The head of a family-run fund, a stupid daughter who had just graduated from college, was busy following the director who was sent to normalize a failing mine in the middle of the Amazon jungle. She wanted to gain some experience in the field."

Helena, who was continuing the story, giggled.

"But for some reason, on the very day I arrived in Brazil, John, the director who had been dispatched as manager, unfortunately had to be urgently evacuated back to the US due to acute appendicitis, and the Cartwright Fund didn't have any new staff to dispatch. After all, it's a family office, so they don't tend to have a lot of staff."

"Uh, what is a family office?"

"Um... It's a term for funds that are managed by families. Well, it's not necessarily just families that work there. You can think of them as much smaller than the big bracket investment banks on Wall Street."

Hyungmin didn't really know what a bulge bracket was, but he nodded, assuming it meant a large bank.

"Thanks to that, I was able to learn Portuguese, mining, production management, human resources management, restructuring, and even normalizing insolvent companies all at once in the middle of the Amazon. I think I slept for about two hours a day?"

Helena smiled slightly, self-deprecatingly, incredulously.

"I just graduated from college the day before yesterday, and I met people nonstop from morning till night, made decisions about things I knew nothing about, and cried at night, searching for data to see if the decisions I made during the day were right. If I hadn't been able to connect to the Internet via satellite in the middle of the Amazon, I might have gone crazy."

"So, did you save the mine?"

"No, it's totally ruined!"

Helena burst out laughing when she saw Hyungmin's embarrassed expression.

"There was a reason for it to be bad! A mine is something that ends when its reserves are exhausted. No matter how much you reduce costs and increase productivity, it just won't work. In the end, all the miners who were working at the mine were fired, and the mine was closed."

Helena continued, stirring the rest of her iced caramel macchiato with a straw.

"Oh my goodness, do you know how many types of documents you have to submit when you close a mine? All kinds of documents that I couldn't even imagine in my wildest dreams, all translated into Portuguese and submitted to the Brazilian government, fighting with bureaucrats and lawyers… When it was all over, I went back to my hotel room in Brasilia and cried and drank a whole bottle of cachaça alone. I realized that my dad's intuition can be wrong sometimes, and that was a valuable lesson."

Hyungmin, who was at a loss for words because he didn't know what to say, chose a topic that seemed relatively safe.

"What is cachaça?"

"It's a type of rum made in Brazil. It's made from sugarcane… I'll send you a bottle later when I get the chance."

Helena smiled as she looked at Hyungmin's face, which still had a dark complexion.

"It's okay, it's okay. It's already been a while. It's been five years since I last had a nightmare about the mine."

Helena smiled brightly as she watched Hyungmin's face turn slightly pale.

"But what I am most proud of is that we managed to somehow raise funds to give consolation money to all the miners who lost their jobs, and find other jobs for most of them. We can't always succeed, but at least we can treat the people who suffered with us to that extent. Kim Do: If a new manager is appointed, I will definitely secure a position for the youth team manager!"

"Oh, does that sound like you want me to go back to coaching the youth team?"

Helena giggled at Hyungmin's slightly blunt rebuttal and said:

"Enjoy it while it lasts. Enjoy it while you can. No one can predict what will happen in this world."

"Enjoy it while it lasts. Enjoy it while you can."

Arthur, sitting next to Hyungmin, looked at him as he muttered while thinking about the strategy for the next game in the conference room.

"Where does it hurt?"

"No. I just want to enjoy this moment."

"Did you appoint a new director in this picture?"

Hyungmin tried hard to suppress the irritation rising in him at Arthur's odd remark and answered.

"No. I'm just going to focus on the next game."

"Huh. Well, even if the board of directors appoints a manager tomorrow, the next game will already be late, so you have no choice but to take charge."

Hyungmin tried to focus on the tactical board before his eyes as he continued to hear hallucinations saying things like, "You, you, you."

Brentford Football Club, one of the many clubs located in London, is famous in the football world for its unique management philosophy.

Of course, Brentford was also the first newcomer to be promoted since the English top flight was reorganized into the Premier League, but they were more famous for the unique philosophy of their owner, Matthew Benham.

Matthew Benham, a Brentford fan since childhood, was a professional gambler and a believer in statistics, and unlike the conventional football world, he advocated recruiting players and building a team through thorough statistics and analysis.

In 2012, with his hometown team Brentford still in the third tier, on the brink of bankruptcy, Benham accepted the pleas of the fans and took over the club.

Brentford's new owners declared that they could not win in the same way as their rivals, who had vastly greater budgets, financial resources, and history.

The following move shocked the football world as they abolished the reserve and youth teams that everyone had taken for granted and began operating a B team in a way similar to the 'Moneyball' method attempted by Oakland in Major League Baseball.

After that, Brentford went through many ups and downs over the next eight seasons, but gradually made their way into the second division, and after settling there, they finally achieved promotion to the Premier League in the 2020/21 season.

After enduring a long and arduous journey, Brentford finally entered the Premier League, but they had yet to show their eagerly anticipated Premier League football in front of their home fans, as their opening match was scheduled to be an away game against Brighton.

Having drawn their first match, Brentford's next opponent was Burnley, a team that had been in the Premier League for much longer but was currently considered one level below them.

Everyone associated with Brentford and the players were determined to secure a victory in their first home game of the Premier League in front of their own fans.

Of course, Hyungmin was not concerned about Brentford's historic moment and determination and was focusing all his energy on applying his tactics to Burnley.

"As expected, Brentford will start in a 5-3-2 formation with Brian Mbemo and Ivan Toni as the two up front, Vitali Zanelt, Frank Onjeka, and Christian Norgaard as midfielders, Bruno Valdez, Christopher Ajer, and Pontus Jansson as defenders, and Rico Henry and Mads Roeslev as left and right wing-backs."

30 minutes before the game started.

As the home team's cheers from the home fans outside could be faintly heard through the walls of the away team's locker room, Hyungmin gathered the players together and calmly reviewed the tactics one last time.

"First of all, Brentford will control the space in the center with a total of eight players in a 3-3-2 formation, and the wing-backs will move up and down the sideline on the left and right. It is important to block these wing-backs well, as they are the main attacking route. If they move the ball to the side, Dwight and Charlie will be responsible for blocking the left side, and Jay and Matt will be responsible for blocking the right side."

Left-back Dwight McNeil, left-back Charlie Taylor, right-back Jay Rodriguez, and right-back Matt Lawton, who are expected to start, nodded.

"The midfield should also actively help. If we press forward like we did in the last game, the ball will go out to the side, and if the two wingers can block it well, there won't be a big problem. Tony and Mbemo are good attackers, but they are a step below Everton's Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who we blocked in the last game."

Burnley's central defenders Ben Mee and James Tarkowski, who had held Everton's central striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin to a 5-point rating in the last match, nodded confidently at Hyungmin's words.

"It's not a difficult opponent. If we just focus, we can easily finish it!"

"Okay. Let's give it a try!"

As the manager's instructions were concluded, captain Ben Mee stood up and looked around at the players to boost their morale.

"For ever and ever (Forever and ever)! Who are we?"

"We are Burnley!"

Burnley's players responded with determination.

And the actual game proceeded magically as Hyungmin had said.