Yoo Byung-soo: the one that got away
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By John Duerden
It is no secret that South Korea has been looking for a goal scorer for years and it is not alone in that. There have been plenty of players to try but none have made the position their own.
From time to time, a young player scores a few and the press gets excited. He makes a couple of appearances for the Taeguk Warriors and it doesn’t work. He drops back into the pack and gets more chances.
There was Lee Dong-gook in the middle of the last decade who had become the go-to goal getter but a serious injury just before the 2006 World Cup ended that. Park Chu-young started to look good for his country from around 2009 but his move to Arsenal in 2011 and the lack of game time he received was the beginning of the end for him.
These days there is Suk Hyun-jun of FC Porto who is showing promise as well as Hwang Eui-jo and Lee Jeong-hyeop. All are competing.
But there was once Yoo Byung-soo. Now 28, the striker has just been released by Russian team FC Rostov and could well be heading back to the Land of the Morning Calm.
Yet in 2009, he was a young man emerging onto the K-League scene and suggesting that he could be the answer to Korea’s goal scoring problems for the next decade.
He went to Incheon United. Incheon, formed in 2004, has never been one of the big boys.
Yoo scored goals. This was especially impressive as he was playing for a team that was not going to win the league and did not create many chances.
He scored on his debut against Busan I’Park and never looked back. Twelve league goals in his first season was a fine return and he was in the running to be K-League Rookie of the Year. The goals kept coming in his second season, often regarded as a difficult one for players who have enjoyed success in their first campaign.
He famously scored four in one game against Asian champions Pohang Steelers in April 2010 and there were those who felt Yoo should be in the national team squad for the 2010 World Cup. He finished well in the area and took a mean free-kick.
There was a perception that formed early on, and proved to be hard to shake, that his game was too limited and apart from scoring goals, he just didn’t do enough.
In 2010, at the age of 22 and with a mid-table team, he was the league’s top scorer with 22 goals. In a team that finished 11th out of 15, it was a huge achievement that did not bring the credit it deserved.
Yet he never got a serious chance for his country. Coach Huh Jung-moo gave others the opportunity to show what they could do for the national team but Yoo barely got a look. Successor Cho Kwang-rae felt the striker did not suit his style of play.
By the time Choi Kang-hee took over, Yoo had left for Al Hilal in Saudi Arabia. Moving to the Middle East may have been good for his bank balance but was never going to benefit his national team chances.
If he was not being picked when he was banging in the goals in Korea, he was not going to be selected due to any exploits in Riyadh. Perhaps he felt that as it was not going to happen, he may as well move.
After two good years in Saudi Arabia, a tough place to play and settle, Yoo moved to Rostov in Russia where he never quite looked comfortable with a succession of injuries not helping. Now he has to get his military service out of the way but still has time to show a succession of national team coaches what they missed.
Yoo could have been the man to lead the line for years but it wasn’t to be.