Trail of the Lion King

It’s FA Cup time again with the sixteen K-League teams joining the remaining National League, Challengers League and University teams in the last thirty two. The draw is seeded, so each game features a top division club.

I hadn’t intended to go to a game as the Seoul match was the only one I could get to and I’ve been there enough times not to get too much of a buzz from watching their fringe players in a deserted stadium.

Someone at work decided that this would be a good opportunity for a ‘teambuilding’ session though and I would have felt more than a little bad-mannered turning down the invitation when they know how much of my spare time I spend going to football matches.

The good news was that we got out of work an hour early and by 6.30pm we were sat on benches outside the stadium drinking straight from litre bottles of Hite. That’s my kind of team-building activity. The tickets had been sorted in advance and some of the younger employees had been sent to the supermarket to buy the amount of supplies that would have been more appropriate for a month long trip.

Refreshments.

As kick-off time approached we found our seats in the East stand. There were a few hundred people there from my company, which is just as well as the attendance was a long way down on that of a league fixture. Yongin didn’t help much as they brought eight fans. Possibly the same eight that I’d seen in their recent away game at Goyang KB.

Unfortunately for Bob, his Mam had put his blue shirt in the wash.

As expected, Seoul had rested a few players. Edilson was out there on the pitch though, playing in the centre of defence and Dejan Damjanovic was on the bench in case it didn’t all go to plan. The first half was goalless and without much action. Yongin had a few chances but didn’t really look like scoring whilst Seoul never got out of second gear. Most of the fun came from watching the activities of the company ‘freshmen’ who appeared to have been practising their chants all week.

Stand up if you love your job.

I got the impression that a few of them had not been to a football game before and possibly wouldn’t be returning until the next team-building event, but they all knew the importance of appearing committed to the cause whilst their bosses were watching and they kept up the singing throughout the match.

 At half-time Seoul must have decided that it had been goalless for long enough and they brought on Dejan Damjanovic. It didn’t take him long to make an impact and once the first goal went in that was game over. Seoul added another three later in the second half making it a successful evening for all bar the Yongin Eight. It was just as well really as I dread to think how the freshmen would have taken it if Seoul had lost.

Everyone who had been good was given a balloon to take home.

After the game a few of us adjourned to the convenience store next to the stadium and continued our bonding over some more cans. There were a few shocks in the round with three National league teams progressing at the expense of their K-League opposition. Hopefully two of them will draw each other in the next round to ensure a lower division representative in the last eight.

This entry was posted on May 24, 2011 at 10:41 pm and is filed under Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.