Stielike, Choi to clash in All-Star game

National football team coach Uli Stielike, left, and Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors coach Choi Kang-hee will face each other in the 2015 K-League All-Star game scheduled for July 17. / Yonhap

By Nam Hyun-woo

Korean football fans will converge on Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, on July 17, with national team coach Uli Stielike and Jeonbuk Hyundai coach Choi Kang-hee, to watch their favorite stars play in a long-awaited display of local football, the 2015 K-League All-Star game.

The K-League organizers said the game will kick off at Ansan Wa Stadium, home of a second division team Ansan Police Football Club. Forty-four players representing the country’s top-flight K-League Classic are up for fans’ and their colleagues’ votes and half of them will either be coached by Stielike or Choi.

Here is a look at the showcase event.

Leading coaches’ clash

Fans will tune in not only to see their men in action but also to watch a rare game in which the two most acknowledged tacticians in Korea will test each other.

Choi, who is one of the most discussed football coaches in Korea, heads Jeonbuk Hyundai, making the club the undisputed favorite of the K-League Classic.

Though Choi’s bid for achieving treble _ winning the Asian Champions League (ACL), K-League Classic and FA Cup _ was foundered as his men were knocked out of FA Cup round of 16 by Pohang Steelers, Jeonbuk stands still at the pole position of K-League, six points clear of runner-up Suwon Samsung as of Sunday morning, and is the only Korean team made it into the quarterfinal of ACL.

Since he took the helm of the Greens in July 2005, Choi so far clinched 199 wins in Jeonbuk’s K-League, FA Cup, ACL, FIFA Club World Cup. Also, should he add three more league victories, he ties former Suwon Samsung coach Kim Ho’s record 153 league wins for a single team.

Stielike, who coaches the national team since September last year, is now following the footstep of his predecessor Guus Hiddink, who consolidated his status as Korea’s most beloved foreign national team coach.

Along with fine results he reaped in recent games, including a 3-0 win over the United Arab Emirates, his various involvements into Korean football for its advance helped him to make a soft landing into the Korean job, which is often described as poisoned chalice for foreign coaches.

For the All-Star game, the two will pick 11 men apiece among 22 players who gained a spot in the game.

Who will shine brightest?

On June 15, the league organizers opened a mobile vote page for the All-Star game, which have 44 candidates who have shown solid performances this season.

Fans can cast their vote to two forwards, two wingers, two central midfielders, two center backs, two wing backs and one goalkeeper until Monday midnight. The result will be reflected 70 percent into the total score and remaining 30 percent will be reflected by the result of a separate vote on the players by 12 K-League Classic teams’ coaches and captains.

The list includes veteran goalkeeper Kim Byung-ji of Jeonnam Dragons, Ulsan Hyundai’s towering striker Kim Shin-wook, FC Seoul’s Park Chu-young and Cha Du-ri, K-League’s all-time scoring leader Lee Dong-gook of Jeonbuk, and Suwon’s midfielder Yeom Ki-hun who shines the brightest this season with his solid attack.

On June 24, the league organizers announced the mid-term tally and Cha topped the list with 102,713 votes.

For Cha, the All-Star game will be his last as he earlier said that he will retire after this season.

“I just want to thank everybody, especially my mother,” Cha said in a recent news conference. “Since there is no All-Star game in European football, this is a rare chance to have fun with other players without pressure,” said Cha, who spent his early career in Bundesliga and the Scottish Premier League.