Seoul to host Jeonbuk in Asian Champions League semifinal
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By John Duerden
It has not been a great few days for Korean football. The national team lost to Iran 1-0 on Tuesday, a first defeat in the qualifications for the 2018 World Cup. It was not just the fact that the Taeguk Warriors lost ― and it was a bigger loss than the scoreline suggests ― but what happened afterwards.
Coach Uli Stielike said a few things after the game, lamenting the lack of quality strikers, for one. Son Heung-min, one of this season’s best performers in the English Premier League ― and the official EPL Player of the Month for September ― pointed out that there were plenty of good players in Korea. Captain Ki Sung-yueng was diplomatic about the coach’s comments, but didn’t seem especially pleased.
Stielike later said that there had been a misunderstanding about his comments. The explanation did not sound especially convincing but regardless, the damage had been done. The reaction back in Korea was fierce with the German coming in for criticism for blaming the players for the defeat.
There should be an opportunity to produce a better advertisement for Korean football this Wednesday. Seoul will host Jeonbuk Motors in the second leg of the Asian Champions League semifinal. The winner will play either Al Ain of the United Arab Emirates or Qatar’s El Jaish in the final.
Jeonbuk is 4-1 up from the first leg last month and looks very good indeed. Seoul was unable to keep up with the Jeonju team and now finds itself with much to do in the second leg. Trying to claw back three goals against the best team in Korea will be far from easy.
Something has changed since the game last month however. Then, Jeonbuk was walking away with the K-League. The team was 14 points clear of second-place Seoul. With six games remaining, it meant that the domestic championship was as good as won ― for the third successive year.
But then Jeonbuk was docked nine points by K-League authorities on Sept. 30 after a former scout was found guilty of bribing referees in 2013. The club claimed that it had no knowledge of what was being done but it suddenly found that a 14-point gap had become five.
And with Seoul winning the next game in the K-League and Jeonbuk only managing to tie, the lead has been cut to three points. Seoul has five games to catch Jeonbuk and with the two set to meet in the final game of the season next month, the capital city club has an opportunity to snatch the most unlikely of titles.
This provides the backdrop for Wednesday’s game. When Seoul lost the first leg, its season looked to be over. That is no longer the case. What effect it has on the Asian clash remains to be seen but Jeonbuk’s stroll to domestic success is no longer so comfortable and this could make its international journey a little more challenging too.
After the week that Korean football has had, an exciting and high-quality demonstration of the game in the Land of the Morning Calm would go down very well indeed.