Weekend Listing + Kickaround: Poyet ‘admits he’d picked Ji…’

We got the weekend listings, the European listings thanks once again to Korean Footballers Abroad + K-League Classic round 8 …. during the kickaround we discuss a few developments including the post Ji/Sunderland/clerical-error-gate revelations: Gus Poyet, after taking over midseason, confessed he would have played Ji Dong-Won but his hands were tied -all this before Ji’s January transfer to Augsburg which later revealed the surprise news he would go on to BVB in the summer…

But first, to the European listing this weekend April 12-13…which Korean Footballers Abroad advises about the start times in England: “Many of these kickoffs will have a 7 minute delay due to Hillsborough remembrance.”  [Times in US EST / TV US broadcast]

What to watch out for this weekend in Europe:

• The relegation battles seem to be a recurring theme for the past several years with the KPA’s. This year is no different with Ki Sung-Yeung‘s bottom dwelling Sunderland squad in the deepest of holes with little hope to get out. Why? They’re at the bottom, their fixtures for the next 5 matches look daunting AND they need Fulham, West Brom and Norwich to lose practically all of their remaining matches.  Cardiff, just a notch above Sunderland, has an easier set of fixtures, but they look utterly lost at the helm – Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s January signings have been a bust. Way to go Vincent Tan, way to go. As much as I love Cardiff and the long suffering supporters of this proud club, Kim Bo-Kyung‘s agent should be working around the clock to get him out of South Wales pronto. Anyway, Ki should get the start vs Everton, while Kimbo will play depending on what Solskjær’s ouija board tells him.
• US viewers will get another chance to possibly see Yun Suk-Young suit up for QPR.  Yun won man of the match a few weeks ago, a 1-3 win at Middlesbrough.  Yun did see the last 13 minutes of a 2-0 loss at Blackburn last Tuesday.
• Not 100% sure but Lee Chung-Yong might’ve had the assist in Tuesday’s 1-2 win at Doncaster. Here’s ESPNFC: “Lee Chung-yong headed down a free-kick and Mason slammed the ball home in fine style from a tight angle.”  However, no record of an assist was registered in his name. Clerical error strikes again? Lee probably in the starting XI at Barnsley.
• It’s a bit baffling but Park Chu-Young’s relatively new toe injury will hampering his return to Watford’s lineup. How many minutes has Park played for the hornets so far? 75 minutes? The roller coaster nature of his career continues. Will he see any more action for Watford this season? update: I just saw this in the twittersphere
  

  Worrying for South Korea? Park Chu-young has returned home for treatment on a toe injury. Expected to be out for 2-3 weeks

  — John Duerden (@JohnnyDuerden) April 4, 2014

   

• Injuries, injuries, Park Joo-Ho looks to be out for this weekend for Mainz, which seems to be of concern for their manager.  Look for Koo Ja-Cheol to be in the lineup against Werder Bremen.
• Kudos to Hong Jeong-Ho, part of the Augsburg squad that broke Bayern Munich’s 53 game unbeaten streak. Optimistic: Ji recovered enough to be on the pitch with Hong for Augsburg’s clash with Hoffenheim. A remarkable result last weekend, impressive year overall -and it’s only Augsburg’s 3rd season in the Bundesliga!  Concerning Augsburg’s Korean duo, the Bundesliga’s english language site has a translated video (including a bad 70’s kung fu style overdub of their voices) of Hong and Ji’s interview about their season so far in Germany, German language lessons (3 hours a week), and Ji’s awkward goal against his future employers at BVB. Oh, almost forgot, living legend Cha Bum-Kun drops by Augsburg:
  

  대한민국 레전드 차범근 감독님이 오늘 지동원 선수와 홍정호 선수를 찾아가셔서 이번 시즌 남은 경기들을 위해 행운을 불어넣어 주셨습니다. #FCA #Cha #Ji #Hong pic.twitter.com/8as9nawNOY

  — FC Augsburg (@FCAugsburg) April 10, 2014

   

• Son Heung-Min, is rumored to be a target by Juventus (excited Jae?) – that according to tottojuve.com…
• Son’s manager Hyppia was sacked after loss to HSV and falling to 5th in the Bundesliga…but wait, some clause in his contract means if the team does eventually qualify for the Champions League, Hyppia could return as manager for Bayer Leverkusen. That’s some contract…
• More Ryu Seung-Woo please!  I didn’t see the match, but from all accounts, he looked impressive despite the few minutes on the pitch in Bayer’s loss to HSV.

This was so one week ago, but between a wedding in Mexico and my 17 month old daughter down with hand foot & mouth disease (oh the joy), I missed the mini-news surrounding the (non) controversy of Sunderland playing Ji Dong-Won in the fall without proper international credentials -nearly losing 3 losing points in the matter. The Blackcats bad luck (turned out to be incompetent clerical filing) continues, but it could have been much worse. In what some in the English media describe as possibly a hushed up affair between the FA and the club, Sunderland only suffered a slap-on-the-wrist fine with club secretary Liz Coley resigning in the aftermath.  I would agree, more transparency was needed, but “Ji-gate” will be a mere after-thought – probably since Sunderland is on their way down – but a bigger headache for the FA noisily goes away since they will not be re-playing the League Cup and FA Cup matches.

The more interesting revelation that comes from “Ji-gate” was Poyet telling the Daily Mail that after the clerical error was discovered, he couldn’t play Ji -preferring to keep the situation quiet -but here’s the kicker: he would have played him had he been eligible.  So in the end, there was quite a lot of playing time Ji essentially lost due to simply paperwork error. Insane. Undoubtedly that motivated Ji to seek the greener pastures of Germany -this time for good.  Poyet goes on in the interview praising Ji’s manner regarding the matter: “I can only talk him as a professional and he was outstanding. 
I explained the situation to him and he acted very professionally. He waited. He didn’t say a word. He left the football club with all our best wishes and he deserves credit for how he coped personally with the situation.” 

There you go. In a way (or in my demented egotistical imagination), it’s like Gus was quasi-apologizing directly to me- or at least all Tavern goers. More from Poyet :

“People maybe now know why we couldn’t play him.

I’m not too much into comments and I don’t have Twitter but I can imagine some people love Ji and they’re saying when I wasn’t playing him every week and he’s not even on the bench they were killing me but they didn’t know. I hope they now understand why.”

Gus, you had me at ‘hello’.  (wait…did he even say hello?)

PS. You might have heard Christian Benteke is badly injured and won’t make the World Cup for Belgium. I don’t like to deal in schadenfreude (it’s bad juju), so I won’t, but it could be a blow to Belgium’s chances in the World Cup. That said, they still got Hazard and Lukaku – the KNT’s backline will have their work cut out for them this June…

Thanks to Jae, very cool news about the U16 Mondial Football Montaigu tournament in France which will include the Barcelona academy kids Lee Seung-Woo and Jang Gyeol-Hee – if you didn’t hear about that, read it at the Tavern here.

Whoa, we have so much more -but I think I’ll save all that for a Saturday brief update and get out a rare weekend kickaround. stay tuned.