Hello all, a very short weekend preview for our Koreans Abroad this week. Match to watch this weekend: Swansea City vs Tottenham Hotspur (Korean Derby). Sadly Ki Sung-Yueng will not be featuring due to his toe injury.
> Tavern owner takeover: we’ve been all so busy, but don’t want to neglect some important developments, Jeonbuk crowned champions of Asia! Suwon Bluewings surprisingly take leg 1 of the Korea FA Cup, will their 2:1 win be enough when they go to Seoul World Cup stadium to face their supercup rivals FC Seoul on Saturday (in the US, kickoff is 11:30pm EST/8:30pm PST tonight) – more on that later. First, lets return to Nicole’s weekend listing!
| Day | Time (ET) | Player | Club | Opponent | TV |
| Saturday | 9:30AM | Park Joo-Ho | @Borussia Dortmund | Borussia Monchengladbach | FOXSports 1/ FOX Soccer 2GO |
| Saturday | 9:30AM | Kim Jin-Su | @Hoffenheim | Koln | Fox Soccer 2GO |
| Saturday | 10:00AM | Ki Sung-Yueng | Swansea City | @Tottenham Hotspur | NBCSN |
| Saturday | 10:00AM | Son Heung-Min | @Tottenham Hotspur | Swansea City | NBCSN |
| Saturday | 10:00AM | Lee Chung-Yong | @Crystal Palace | Southampton | CNBC |
| Sunday | 11:30AM | Koo Ja-Cheol | @Augsburg | Frankfurt | FOXSports 1/ FOX Soccer 2GO |
| Sunday | 11:30AM | Ji Dong-Won | @Augsburg | Frankfurt | FOXSports 1/ FOX Soccer 2GO |
| Monday | 12:00PM | Suk Hyun-Jun | @Trabzonspor | Adanaspor | Nil |
Stay with us, more after the jump…
I don’t expect Park Joo-Ho to be included in the squad list this week. There are reports of him searching for a new club. Hope he chooses a club where he is a regular starter.
Kim Jin-Su hasn’t starting any league games and made no bench appearances this season. I expect it to be the same this week too. He should definitely think about a move in January.
Ki Sung-Yueng is currently injured with a minor toe injury. He should be out for a couple of weeks.
Son Heung-Min should start against Swansea City this weekend. We haven’t seen a goal from him in ages. Let’s go Sonny.
Lee Chung-Yong is currently injured right now, he retained a little knock during International Week. I expect him to out of the squad list this week.
Koo Ja-Cheol sustained a calf injury couple of weeks ago. He should be back in one months time.
Augsburg don’t have any strikers available right now so I expect Ji Dong-Won to start this weekend against Frankfurt.
Looks like Suk Hyun-Jun has been replaced by second choice striker Dame N’Doye. N’Doye has been scoring in crucial games and has been starting over Suk Hyun-Jun. I expect Suk to make bench against Adanaspor this week.
Tavern Owner takeover Part II:
Jeonbuk won the Asian Champions League title last weekend in a hotly contested 2nd leg at Al Ain. The UAE club did not go without a fight and with some abysmal defending, Jeonbuk was staring at a penalty kick away from extra time. Let’s recap this crazy game as it was fraught with drama and back and forth tension:
- With the aggregate score in Jeonbuk’s favor (2:1 victory at Jeonju for leg 1), Lopes fell in the opening 3rd minute. He was substituted for Han Kyo-Won and you could sense the tremendous loss of confidence after having lost the brilliant Brazilian to leg injury with 85 minutes left to play for. After the match, doctors informed the team that Lopes would be out 6 months to recover from a cruciate ligament injury.
- 1st half Jeonbuk went ahead – seemingly disaster for Al Ain as Lee Jae-Sung’s corner kick found an unmarked Han Kyo-Won, the substitute turns in an unlikely hero with the vital go ahead goal. Jeonbuk might have been breathing easier except:
- Lee Myong-ju brilliant strike after latching onto Caio’s cross into the area. Lee was unmarked and the shambolic Jeonbuk defense was culpable. Suddenly Al Ain were in the ascendency, back in it with a goal to equalize…
- Which Al Ain were poised to do several minutes later after Kim Hyung-il slow clearance allowed Aspirilla to seize the opportunity. Kim fouled him in a panic and suddenly Al Ain was about to rock the stadium with a chance to convert a PK. Except fate intervened: Douglass eyed the top right corner, and lifted the ball high, past a low diving Suntae, and up over the crossbar! PK miss and Al Ain would rue the missed opportunity.
- Touchline brawl between players and coaches leads to dismisal for Jeonbuk’s assistant coach and Al Ain coach Zlatko Dalic.
- 2nd half clear penalty for chopping down Han Kyo-Won in the box waived off by the referees, who had managed to mismanage the game. That could’ve been catastrophic for Jeonbuk, but with the Wookie coming in as reinforcement and the hot hands of Suntae keeping several dangerous strikes out of the Korean net, Jeonbuk buckled up and held on to a tight 1:1 draw, enough to win 3-2 on aggregate and win their 2nd Asian title – the first a decade ago – and avenged the referee’s miscall that allowed the 2011 title to slip away in Jeonju.
https://twitter.com/TheAFCCL/status/802564421688164352
https://twitter.com/TheAFCCL/status/802595344496414720
One additional post match consequence: not only does Lee Dong-Guk, the lion king, set off the for sunset (possibly retiring?), manager Choi Kang-Hee – who the Tavern admittedly malign frequently for his role in falling backwards into the 2014 World Cup qualification for Team Korea – won Asian manager of the year at the AFC awards yesterday. Congratulations – or something like that.
The win now extends Jeonbuk’s historic season – one wild roller coaster ride with a December date at the FIFA Club World Cup. There they will meet up with the winners of other continental club champs including Real Madrid. Awesome if Jeonbuk can score – though their defense probably will get lit up. And according to Korea Football News twitter feed, this:
Ex-Busan IPark midfielder William has been included in Club América's squad for the 2016 FIFA Club World Cup.
— Korea Football News (@KORFootballNews) December 2, 2016
I’m running out of time, I’m procrastinating on my other writing job, only moments left to go over the Korea FA Cup SO I’ll leave you with this discussion at K-League United of Suwon’s 2:1 win over FC Seoul in the first leg last weekend. The very last domestic game of the 2016 season comes down to this final last leg, should be a good atmosphere and politically agitated anti Park Guen-hye crowd on hand to witness the supercup showdown of the year. Will Park Chu-Young recover in time? What’s Adriano doing on the bench? So many questions, and only answers to give tonight. Catch the 2nd leg of the Korea FA Cup (and read here for a discussion on what to expect for the 2nd leg at K-League United):
1:30pm Korea time kickoff in Seoul World Cup Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
That translates to 11:30pm TONIGHT (friday Dec 2) on US East coast / 8:30pm for US Pacific coasters.
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