Tavern’s First Podcast: CJay discusses Kim Bo-Kyung+Korean derby / K-Talk on Relegation+Asian Champions League Finals

November 9, 2012

WHOOO!  What a WEEK!  Barack Obama re-elected in the United States (73% of Asians overwhelmingly backed Obama according to the Washington Post), South Korea’s U-19 squad beat China 1-0 to make it to the quarterfinals of the AFC U-19 championship, Ki Sung-Yeung’s former team Celtic earned a shock upset of Barcelona, and both Kim Bo-Kyung and Lee Chung-Yong had some cracking games for their respective teams midweek.

This is going to be a very short post as most of my collective efforts were geared towards putting out the very first Tavern of the Taeguk Warriors Podcasts (part 1 & 2)!  [Note: as the Tavern has only rudimentary media equipment, it’s production value is a wee bit rough, but the Tavern will be upgrading microphones and other items soon for future podcasts].

Podcast part 1: Our man in Cardiff, Wales, CJay discusses Kim Bo-Kyung’s first 2 starts for the Bluebirds, how he fared against Lee Chung-Yong in the ‘Korean Derby’ last Saturday, and red jerseys vs blue jerseys -can they only win in red OR are the formations boss Malkay uses in away vs home matches the culprit of their uneven performances?  ‘Doing the Cardiff,’ seems to be a November/December annual ritual for the Welsh side -what exactly does that mean?  Will we see Cardiff in the Premiership next season?  Our man in Cardiff has some deft insights into all this.

Podcast part 2: A collective effort with K-Talk blog: Speaking with both Chris Ayres and Lex Nande of K-Talk, an amazingly resourceful blog about the K-League. We preview the Asian Champions League Finals featuring Ulsan Hyundai Horangi vs Saudi Arabia’s Al Ahli, plus look at the revolutionary changes to the K-League, namely the split table and relegation taking place for the first time.  Speaking of a league implementing relegation for the first time, ruminations about trying out relegation in American sports leagues: imagine the New York Yankees relegated to the minor leagues – perhaps a capital idea -or is it? And why the hell isn’t South Korea representin’ in the 2012 FIFA Futsal Championship  in Thailand?  Could there be flexibility on the mandatory military service that burdens young Korean footballers?  K-Talk illuminates.  [note: congratulation to K-Talk on their 100th post!  They also explore how the Asian Champions League final means to the teams at the top of the K League table in an earlier but very apt post – you can check that out here.]

Germany, Freiburg vs Hamburg  9:30 am   No Tv/Internet?    Son Heung-Min looking for his 6th goal of the season -he still is the leading goalscorer for his club and Asian goalscorer in the Bundesliga.

England, Everton vs. Sunderland 10 a.m. Fox Soccer, Fox Deportes  Ji Dong-Won hasn’t been in Sunderland’s first team squad all season – could it be coincidence Martin O’Neil’s team has been dreadful all season? It certainly won’t make their squad any worse then they are now to let some of the youngsters time on the pitch.  Only 1 player, Steven Fletcher has scored for Sunderland – a mere 5 goals.  Louis Saha: nada.

England, Stoke vs. QPR 10 a.m. foxsoccer2go.com (tape at noon on Fox Soccer Plus)  Park Ji-Sung has been out with knee injury lately. Questionable for this Saturday.

England, Southampton vs. Swansea 10 a.m. foxsoccer2go.com (tape at 2:30 on Fox Soccer)  Ki Sung-Yeung is looking for his first goal. Whether he scores or not, he’s been huge for Swansea’s midfield. But this is Southampton, last in the table -could be target shooting practice for the Swans.

England, Cardiff City vs. Hull  10 am    No Tv/Internet?  Kim Bo-Kyung comes into the match with a decent substitute outing last Tuesday. Will he start again? Will he score and join the Blue Dragon in being a Korean goalscorer on English soil this season.

England, Blackpool vs Bolton   10 am  No Tv/Internet?   Lee Chung-Yong had chances, got good shots on goal – for his latest starting performance for (sort of) resurgent Bolton in a 0-0 midweek draw with Leicester City.  Lee is expected to start again — will Stuart Holden eventual return from a long injury be yet another cog needed to get Bolton humming again?

Spain, Rayo Vallecano vs Celta Vigo  10 am  UPDATE: BeInSport Espanol will air this match in the US.   Park Chu-Young doing well in practice, but will he get the start? Even more important, can he end his scoring drought since getting his first and only goal in September?

SUNDAY

U-19 AFC Championship Quarterfinals  South Korea  vs  Iran   10 am   No Tv / Internet?   Taeguk Warriors U-16 were favorites to win it all last month, but stumbled surprisingly in the quarterfinals against Uzbekistan.  Will the U-19 squad go further than their younger brethren and find Asian Football Confederation glory?

One more update: Vancouver Whitecaps just missed advancing further in the MLS playoffs and now the head coach’s 1st mission, according to the Province, is to convince  Lee Young-Pyo to stay with the team one more year.  Lee is contemplating retiring but has yet to make a decision.

Tavern closed for now.  We’ll try to keep updates over the weekend via Twitter.  Seeing as it’s 5:40 am  I can only mutter…Football…bloody hell.