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| Moon Hong, STV Academy's coach, demonstrates a football strategy during an interview with The Korea Times last week. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
By Bae Eun-joo
Where do you go when you want to play football like Lionel Messi?
Moon Hong, a 25-year old footballer with exceptional experience and knowledge acquired from his English football career, may have some answers for Korean football players.
STV (Share the Vision) Football Academy managed by Moon on his Facebook offers a pool of information, insight and motivation to every "friend" who wants to share common their interest on the social network service.
Launched in April last year, STV Football Academy has drawn over 35,000 "likes" with its posted over 200 football analysis videos on 1,500 games. A number of his postings have been seen by more than 200,000 viewers. Some of Moon's more celebrated "friends" include Ulsan Hyundai's Kim Shin-wook, Suwon Samsung's Choi Sung-yong and Jeon Ga-eul of Hyundai Steel Red Angels Women's Football Club.
"STV Football Academy tries to set standards on how to play football well," Moon said. "There is no specific coaching manual on football in Korea. I try to find common ground with the world's best football players and design an effective training program that will put young players on a par with the world's best."
At age 13, Moon left for London, England, to study football and went through trial periods at various youth clubs, such as AFC Wimbledon, Tooting & Mitcham United FC and Aldershot FC, and moved on to Kingstonian FC four years later.
"In the 12th grade, I was accepted by the Filton College and became a player for Bristol Rovers Football Club," Moon recalled. "I thought, finally, I was becoming a professional football player." In the following year he was singled out to run for the ECFA (English Colleges Football Association) U-19 National Team and became the first Asian to represent the English team at international competitions.
However, the midfielder's football career appeared to end when he was faced with visa issues when he was denied permanent residency in England.
"I could not sign contract with a professional football team. That's when I started spending most of my time focusing on how to play football better," Moon said. Analyzing world's top players, such as Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, David Silva, Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez by monitoring their football game films over and over made Moon realize that they all had something in common.
"If I could teach these identified skills and techniques to young football beginners, they could possibly become world's best players," he said. "I started designing my own teaching tutorial and decided to pursue a coaching career."
In February 2015, Moon earned the UEFA B coaching license in Chippenham, England, granted by the Union of European Football Association (UEFA), the governing body of football in Europe, and became the youngest South Korean UEFA B license-holder.
The UEFA B license, also known as FA Level 3 certificate in coaching football, is a nationally recognized qualification with the FA (Football Association), the governing body of English football.
Moon had played for the Sandviks IK, a fourth-tier club in the Swedish football league, in 2014 to meet entry requirements for UEFA B coaching license.
Against his European background, Moon stressed the importance of establishing a one-on-one coaching program that corresponds to the player's current and potential performance needs.
"Korean football centers on strong, tall and fast players. But when you closely observe world players, many of the top scorers are not necessarily fast runners," he pointed out. Iniesta, Silva, Mesut Ozil, Luka Modric and Mario Gotze were a few distinguished players Moon described as not physically "perfect" but who hardly lose possession against their opponents.
"These players know how to play football slowly," he said. "Instead of competing for the ball with full speed and strength, they dribble slowly in order to decelerate the defenders and steal the opportune moment to score the goal."
"My ultimate goal is to start an STV Football Club in Korea and coach the team to advance into the K-League," he said. "I want to make the world come to Korea to learn football. I want to show the players the true spirit of sportsmanship. I want to share the vision."
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