Team K League not backing down against Man City in friendly: coach
Team K League head coach Chung Jung-yong, right, speaks during a press conference at Bucheon Stadium in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday. Yonhap
The All-Star squad of the top Korean football league will not back down against the Premier League giants Manchester City in their upcoming friendly match, the team's head coach said Tuesday.
Chung Jung-yong will be in charge of Team K League against Manchester City at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Seoul World Cup Stadium in Seoul. It will be the first of two matches for the fifth annual Coupang Play Series, organized by the namesake streaming service, with Man City also set to play the Spanish club Atletico Madrid on Sunday.
Chung, who coaches the reigning K League 1 champions Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, will manage 24 All-Stars, an eclectic mix of homegrown talent and foreign-born stars. Despite some key absences following the end of the FIFA World Cup, Man City will be the favorites in the match — a preseason contest for the English side but a midseason contest for Team K League, with all the members having played just this past weekend.
At the prematch press conference at Bucheon Stadium in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, Chung thanked the match organizers for "this opportunity to play against a world-class club" and said he will try to entertain K League fans.
Chung said he studied Man City's previous preseason match, against Inter Milan in Hong Kong on Saturday, to formulate strategies for Wednesday's match.
"We expect them to be aggressive. And even though this is their preseason, their players looked to be in great form, especially some of their younger guys," Chung said. "And we will not back down against them on defense. We will need to apply some hard pressing. We are going to work on that in training today."
Offensively, Chung said he will let his All-Stars "play freely within our basic framework."
At the presser, Chung was flanked by two of his most talented attackers — Ulsan HD FC midfielder Lee Dong-gyeong, the 2025 K League 1 MVP, and Incheon United striker Stefan Mugosa, the 2024 K League 1 scoring champion.
This is Lee's third straight selection for Team K League and Mugosa's first.
"I am so happy to be here for the third straight year. These matches give me an opportunity to see how I stack up against really good players," Lee said. "I am looking forward to testing myself against strong competition."
Mugosa said he felt "proud" of being part of Team K League and he will not take this opportunity lightly.
"It is really a privilege for me to play this kind of game," he said. "At the same time, it is a big responsibility because I represent my name, my family, and also the K League and Korea."
Missing from Man City's traveling squad are two stars of the recent FIFA World Cup: Rodri, who captained Spain to the title and earned the Golden Ball award as the tournament's top player, and Erling Haaland, who led the upstart Norway to the quarterfinals while scoring seven goals to finish third in the Golden Boot race.
But new head coach Enzo Maresca still brought a formidable team, with midfielder Phil Foden, the 2024 winner of the Professional Footballers' Association Men's Players' Player of the Year award, and midfielder Mateo Kovacic, a Croatian international who has played at each of the past four World Cups.
Lee said while he was disappointed not to go up against some of those big names, he was excited about a potential matchup against Foden, who, like Lee, is a left-footed attacker.
Mugosa picked Kovavic as the player he was most looking forward to seeing, having already faced the Croatian twice in international matches for his Montenegrin national team.
As for his Team K League teammates, Mugosa said he just wanted them to feed him good passes.
"I think all of our guys are very good players, and it will be very fun to play with them," he said with a smile. "For strikers, we need good balls to try to score goals."