Man Utd. Arrival Triggers Frenzy
By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
A crimson tide is expected to sweep the Seoul World Cup Stadium once again Friday, but the predominately red-shirt crowd won't be cheering for Pim Verbeek's boys this time around.
Premiership giants Manchester United are in Seoul, the second-stop in their Asian tour, to prepare for a friendly against FC Seoul. The football club's arrival has created an enormous buzz here, with the 65,000 available seats selling out just after six hours and Internet scalpers asking over 300,000 won ($327) for tickets priced at 50,000 won.
The stadium will feel nothing like home for hosts FC Seoul, with the crowd expected to be generous in giving out ``oohs'' and ``ahhs'' to the fancy footwork of Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs.
``I was willing to pay the extra money, but it's hard to get a ticket at even 400,000 won at this point,'' said Kim Ji-min, a 26-year-old office worker who had planned to take a day off on Friday should he acquire a ticket.
``Everybody is interested, even those girls who can't explain what a corner kick is. Guess they will show up in red shirts and pink hats anyway,'' he laughed.
Manchester United is by far the most beloved foreign sports franchise in Seoul, matching the popularity of Major League Baseball (MLB)'s Los Angeles Dodgers when Park Chan-ho was at his prime in the early 2000s.
The English Premier League section is the most popular feature of the sports news site of Naver (www.naver.com), the country's most-visited Internet portal, even edging domestic baseball stories in the number of hits.
Shinhan Bank even introduced a credit card imprinted with the Manchester United logo recently, allowing the club to join other cultural icons such as Hello Kitty as a face for plastic payment.
The Reds are bringing 25 players on their Asian Tour, including most of their top stars and key off-season acquisitions such as Owen Hargreaves and Luis Nani.
Defender Gabriel Heinze, who played for Argentina at the Copa America, midfielder Oliveira Anderson, appearing for Brazil in the same tournament, did not make the trip to Korea. Defender Gary Neville and attacker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer also missed the trip due to injuries.
The great degree of public interest in Seoul would serve as a quick reminder to the Premiership club of how valuable their Korean midfielder Park Ji-sung could be in generating off-field dollars, although his future performance on the pitch has now become a blurry state of uncertainty.
Park, currently recovering from a knee operation to repair a damaged ligament, is expected to be out until January, and maybe forced to swallow his pride and accept a smaller role with the team until he returns to full health.
Manager Alex Ferguson has been an aggressive player in the summer transfer market, acquiring Hargreaves, Anderson and Nani to add firepower to its already star-studded midfield. The club is also in the hunt for Argentine international Carlos Tevez, although the striker's former team West Ham seems intent on complicating the move.
Ferguson's thirst for stockpiling talent will give him a hard time to find playing time for everyone, and he would be intent on keeping his current stars Ronaldo, Giggs, Michael Carrick and Paul Scholes happy. This means that Park could likely end up the forgotten man.