Tavern owner here, weekend listings time. One game got away from us, Augsburg with a draw 2-2 with M’gladbach today. No Hong Jeong-Ho yet. Going over to Korean Footballers Abroad for the rest of the listings (All times are in Eastern standard time in the US. Broadcast/streams are in the US. Korean Time: add 13 hours+ forward):
| Day | Time (ET) | Player | Club | Opponent | TV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saturday | 10:00:00 AM | Lee Chung Yong | Bolton | Yeovil Town | None |
| Saturday | 10:00:00 AM | Kim Bo Kyung | Cardiff City | @Fulham | NBC Extra Time |
| Saturday | 10:00:00 AM | Yun Suk Young | QPR | Middlesborough | None |
| Saturday | 12:00:00 PM | Kim Young Kyu “Kiu” | Almeria | Barcelona | BeIn |
| Saturday | 12:45:00 PM | Park Ji Sung | PSV Eindhoven | @AZ Alkmaar | ESPN3 / ESPN Deportes |
| Saturday | 9:30:00 AM | Son Heung Min | Bayer Leverkusen | Hannover 96 | None |
| Saturday | 9:30:00 AM | Park Joo Ho | Mainz | @Hertha Berlin | None |
| Saturday | 9:30:00 AM | Koo Ja Cheol | Wolfsburg | @Bayern Munich | GolTV |
| Sunday | 11:00:00 AM | Ji Dong Won | Sunderland | Liverpool | NBC Sports |
| Sunday | 11:00:00 AM | Ki Sung Yueng | Sunderland | Liverpool | NBC Sports |
Probably not worth adding the Swansea / Arsenal game – I’m not going through with playing Charlie Brown anymore. Lucy (aka Arsene Wenger) awaits, holding that tantalizing proverbial football just a few yards away. Hmmm…maybe…just maybe I can actually kick that goddamn football and rip it away from that bitch’s hands…ok here I go:
Saturday 12:30 PM Park Chu-Young Arsenal Swansea NBC (main)
Everyone knows I’m going to make a fool of myself, but I just have to try.
Meanwhile, One World Sports had recently stopped airing K-League matches in the US for several weekends in a row without explanation. Were the games now off their programming grid for good- and if so, why? After calling their PR man in NYC, I got a tweet from One World Sports saying they’re still looking into my questions. Later I got this mysteriously happy tweet:
@taeguk_warrior Very excited about Incheon v. Pohang on Saturday #KLeague
— ONE World Sports (@ONEWorldSports) September 24, 2013
I says to myself, ‘okay.’ I guess if I was a supporter of either team, I too would be very excited, but other than that – why be excited for this game in particular? Kim Yu-na coming on halftime to do some tweaking? Was that tweet a secret code or signal for…what? Turns out, according to the Washington Post Soccer Insider, the game marks the return of the K-League to US airways (at least to the select number of people who are able to subscribe). Again, according to the Soccer Insider, the game is broadcast live 3:30 AM EST on Saturday morning on OWS. Yay. If I were taking the Stephen Colbert approach, I would immediately publish a video podcast with hundreds of balloons dropping all around me and yell “I DID IT! I BROUGHT BACK K-LEAGUE CLASSIC GAMES BACK TO US AIRWAVES! WOOOO!” and give the shaka handsign in victory.
Except for this possibility that the Tavern owner didn’t in fact have any factor in why this game is now available for broad consumption for hungry K League viewers in the US. Could it be a hollow victory, considering that the Tavern owner is about to go to bed rather than stay up to view the game? Or not a victory at all as I checked OWS’s website, and unless they haven’t updated their own listed schedule, the game is not showing up. I’ll just chalk it up to a Tavern victory anyway. There better be a damn tape delay…(there isn’t? WT#*)$_+@!$(_%)#!!!)
Sounds snarky to OWS, but seriously, at the very least they’re the only channel to broadcast Asian league matches – and broadcast AFC WC qualifiers and Asian Champions League games to boot. That’s a hella niche marketing challenge in the US, so credit due for that kind of brave programming. But could they at least air a few more K-League matches- and air tape delay games for the rest of us who aren’t insomniacs?
Guys why do you think Hong isnt playing for Augsburg at least as a sub??
It’s possible he’s still recovering from a injury sustained he left Korea, but I’m not certain of that
Polite correction: The Bundesliga games begin at 9:30 AM not PM. Cheers
Thank you – fix coming right now
Maybe we should blame the Arsenal coach for Park Chu Young not playing. But Hong Myeong Bo just said that PCY is going through some problems, both big and small. I know we support PCY, but maybe it’s his fault for him not playing. Why would a coach buy someone and then just keep him and never play him if he has the possibility of scoring goals? As a soccer coach, I have news: we will play someone if they score goals. We will play someone if they make the team better. If they don’t, we don’t play them.
The reason it doesn’t make sense to us is that there must be something happening that we don’t know about. Us hating Arsene and others hating PCY… we’re not getting all the facts..
PCY recieves heavy criticism from Korean media because he tried to avoid mandatory army service before Olympic by trying to become Monaco citizen which was found later on.
Because of that in the interview, PCY said regardless of the results, he would go to army once the Olympic is over.
and we broke that promise too lol so yeh
he tried to betray a country and broke a promise he made to all Koreans
In 2011 when Arsenal bought Park and he scored against Bolton, we all thought he had a bright future. Then all of a sudden Arsene Wenger stopped playing him and Celta Vigo. At Celta Vigo he wasn’t doing good but he did good in 2012 Olympics. Then after that, idiotic Choi Kang Hee stopped calling up PCY and played Lee dong Gook more often. Then he is basically forced to go to army service in Korea which leads to the Park we have now. I wonder if he still retains his skills from the past.
What I know is that GUUS HIDDINK Is coming to watch Korea vs Brazil
so we gonna have Hiddink magic with us that day
He is?? Where did you here that?
You were right. I watched on the news that Guus Hiddink will be watching and cheering for Korea.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=1417816028446066&set=vb.464668146952729&type=2&theater
He doesn’t. Watch any Celta Vigo game that he appeared in last season, and you can see he’s a shell of his former self. No/little effort, poor finishing, diminished pace, sloppy off-the-ball movement. Could they come back? Sure, with time. But he’s needs games, and lots of them. Arsenal aren’t going to give him that. He needs to suck it up, drop his pride, and just find a team where he can play every match, get back in shape, get to Brazil, and then maybe a good showing there could earn him a move back to Europe.
In keeping with the polite discussions we’ve been relatively blessed with in the comment section, I have to politely point out that PCY said in spring 2012 while the ‘scandal’ was erupting in Korea that he would still do his compulsory military service once his playing career was over, not directly after the olympics. That military service requirement is now moot since he helped win a bronze medal for Korea a couple months later. His residency in Monaco which allowed him to get a 10 year deferment from serving in the S Korean military while not widely known -was officially sanctioned by the South Korean government.
My advocacy point for Korean football is very transparent: there needs to be an allocation of national security needs balanced alongside the needs of advancing Korean football. That means a fair/equitable means of allowing the best and brightest Korean footballers to train abroad if needed – unhindered with military conscription. That would require some creative thinking – possibly allowing for deferment -like having players serve in the military after their best footballing years are over – so they can be a football ambassador for their country in international tournaments like the Asian Cup and World Cup. Otherwise Korean football will continue to sink further and further behind Japan, which is, in my humble (and non-nationalistic) opinion is unacceptable.
So does this mean that young players like Son Heung Min and Lee Seung woo still needs to go to the military service in Korea?? 🙁
Most likely yes. The possible hitch is the Lee Chung-Yong one. Lee CY won’t serve in the military (despite no Olympic medal) because he dropped out of middle school, thus making him “too dumb” to serve. Son finished middle school (but not high school) so I think he’ll need to serve. I’m not sure what Lee Seung-Woo and the Barca kids are doing, education-wise, so I’m not sure about them.
Draft dodging here is still a highly sensitive topic, like (I assume) it was in the US during the 60’s-70’s. The problem with Park’s case was that to the average Korean it reeked of class favoritism. Only a well off person could possibly get a residency certificate from a foreign country, thus it became a case of the rich avoiding service and the poor/middle class having to shoulder the burden. The other issue, if I remember correctly, is that Park had talked about serving for months, but then it was reported that during that time he had applied (successfully) for the residency permit, so people felt like he had been lying to them. That he never really had any intention of serving and would simply “age out” of the military service when his certificate expired.