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Korean K.League Soccer News - Nov 12 2004

John Duerden reports from Seoul

The end of the second stage of the 2004 K-League season is in sight. After Pohang's first stage win, the rest of the teams are vying for the other three remaining play-off spots.

Only now there are two because Suwon Samsung Bluewings finally clinched their spot on the evening of a very wet November 10th. The Asian Club Champions of 2001 and 2002 have been grinding out a series of effective, if not especially graceful, one goal victories in this second stage. Cha Bum-keun will be especially pleased with his players in his first season in charge as the team had a stumbling start to the stage but have recovered splendidly, losing only one game in the last nine. Infuriatingly for Suwon's loyal fans this was a 2-1 home defeat against a resurgent Seongnam Ilhwa, with old Bluewing Lee Seong-nam, formerly known as Denis Laktionov, scoring the winner in front of his former fans.

The former Russian citizen's goal and subsequent celebration has been the only black spot this autumn for the Bluewings who managed to score more than one goal for the first time in eight games to clinch the second spot, triumphing 2-1 over play-off rivals Chonbuk Motors.

This time the Brazilian striking duo of Nadson and Marcel scored in the same game, bringing their joint season tally to twenty. Cha, the former national team coach, won't let his boys from Brazil or the rest of his team rest on their laurels and will push them on to win their last game in the nearby port city of Incheon in order to win the second stage title. As well as a confidence boost for the team which joined the K-League in 1996, it will ensure home advantage in the play-offs.

The team looking most likely to join Suwon and Pohang in the final four is Ulsan Horangi. The Tigers haven't been burning so bright lately and only needed a win in their last three games to guarantee an extension to their season. On November 10th, a paltry crowd of 576 saw Chunnam Dragons' striker Nam Ki-il head home the winner in the last minute leaving the Hyundai-backed team with only two games in which to do the necessary.

Hope still burns bright on Korea's south-east coast however, as the next visitors to Ulsan's Munsu World Cup Stadium will be Bucheon. The Tigers will be licking their lips as on the same night that they were slain by the dragons, Bucheon were being trounced 3-0 by the hitherto, painfully goal-shy Busan I'cons helped by two well-taken goals by substitute Ahn Hyo-yeon.

Chasing what will probably be the last remaining spot is the solid and very unspectacular, FC Seoul, whose 22 games this year have yielded only 35 goals, along with Chunnam Dragons and Chonbuk Motors. The Dragons, whose star Brazilian striker Mota is the leading scorer over both stages with fourteen goals, have been picking up points quite nicely of late. The same cannot be said of their two rivals both of whom must be eager to go on their close-season holidays as they seem to be doing their best to avoid qualifying for the play-off stage, especially Chonbuk.

Since being knocked out of the semi-finals of the Champions League in the last minute, the Motors haven't been able to find the right gear domestically. The team from Jeonju, in the south-west of Korea have slipped to ninth and their only recent win was at home to second-stage whipping-boys Pohang. Still, the Motors have a real chance of qualifying for next season's Champions League if they manage to find an extra gear in their last two games. This is not beyond the team in green as Incheon and Daejeon are, the theoretically not too tricky, obstacles ahead.

Just as Chonbuk's Champions League semi-final defeat sparked a poor run of form for the Jeonju-based team, Seongnam's win in the same round has sent the perennial powerhouses on a good run domestically. The defending champs moved up from 12th to sixth, and at one stage it even looked like a play-off place was within reach but two disappointing draws against Daejeon and Incheon look to have dashed any chance of a four-peat for Seongnam. On the bright side, Cha Kyung-bok's team do have the considerable consolation prize of the final of the Asian Champions League, to be played against Chonbuk conquerors, Saudi side Al Ittihad on November 24th and December 1st.

The rest of the league is pretty much as you were with the also-rans taking points off each other. Only seven points separates second-placed Chunnam and Bucheon in eleventh, vindicating those who claim that a two-stage season makes for a more interesting and competitive league.

Opponents of the system look no further than Pohang Steelers and claim that there can be no greater evidence of the system's failings than the performance of the team who could yet be Korean champions. After winning the first stage relatively comfortably, the Steelers have performed disgracefully in the second, winning just one game out of eleven played, scoring a meagre three goals in the process. The fans, the other teams and the league have been short-changed. Presumably, coach Choi Soon-ho has been saving his charges for the play-offs but the last laugh could be on the young coach as such a pronounced losing habit cannot always be immediately cast off at a moment's notice.

Thus the champions of Korea could yet be the team with the seventh, eighth or even ninth best record over the twenty four games. If nothing else however, at least the play-offs will give the fans at the Steelyard a rare chance to see some competitive football.

K.League Table November 12 2004

Overall Table

* (Pohang as first stage winners-automatically qualify).

Asia's Rooney

Park Joo-young is nineteen and still a student at the prestigious Korea University. However, the thoughtful young man isn't a normal student as he won the 'triple-crown' at the Asian Under-20 World Championships in Malaysia, namely, a winner's medal, the top scorer prize and the tournament MVP.

The young striker is putting a smile back on the face of Korean football after a string of uninspiring performances from the senior team. His six goals, two of which came in the final against China, drove the Korean team to win the Championship.

True to form, after a stunning goal in the final, the Korean media have been quick to label the shy young man as 'Asia's Rooney' and the boy certainly combines subtlety with an eye for goal, something that has been sorely lacking in the Korean team for some time now.

Virtually half of the K-League teams have been linked with Park, who hails from Daegu, and hopefully the teenager won't be crushed by expectation before he even starts a professional game in his native land.

John Duerden

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