Trail of the Lion King

I’d missed the opening weekend of the domestic season in Korea, a last minute trip to Oman stopping me from taking in a fourth division game in Gyeongju and Jeonbuk’s trip to Daejeon. That’s life I suppose. Fortunately I didn’t need to stay in Muscat for a second weekend and that left me free to get to a couple of Korean FA Cup First Round games.

The format of the competition seems to change every year. This season we have a total of sixty four teams taking part, with the First Round consisting of twelve of the eighteen fourth division sides and twenty of the universities. It seemed a little mean to deny the six crappiest Challengers League teams a crack at the cup, although in reality the university sides tend to be of a higher standard than the fourth tier and it may have been that the Korean FA were anxious to avoid the sort of scorelines that would suggest that the teams had played rugby rather than football.

Jen and I caught the KTX to Dongdaegu and then took the subway to Yeungnam University. It’s the final stop on one of the two Daegu lines, the green one I think, and it takes around half an hour to get there. Conveniently the subway station is called Yeungnam University and there’s a pitch shown on the map inside the station, close to exit four.

Sure enough, the pitch was just where the map suggested. What the map didn’t show was that there was more sand than grass and there were no lines marked. It looked a long time since anyone would have played at that venue, or at least anyone who would worry about having a foot disappear down a pothole.

The old grass pitch.

It was a shame really as the old ground had a certain charm to it. The minimal rows of seating would have been more than enough and the ‘main stand’ reminded me of a cricket pavilion. Jen spoke to a fella who looked like he might know what was going on and he directed us around the corner to the artificial pitch ten minutes walk away.

There weren’t any permanent seats alongside the artificial pitch, just a large pile of folding chairs. That was sufficient though for the thirty or so spectators, most of whom were probably there to watch their offspring play.

Those tents were for the players and officials, rather than spectators.

Yeungnam were dressed up as Brighton, whilst Kwangwoon sported a Burnleyesque claret and blue effort. The conditions weren’t ideal as we started with a strong wind blowing towards the Yeungnam goal. Kwangwoon had the better of the opening exchanges but both teams were keeping the ball on the ground and passing it well.

The visitors had the best chance of the half, hitting the post five minutes before the break.

Yeungnam in blue, Kwangwoon in maroon.

Yeungnam picked up a bit after the interval although perhaps this was due to it being their turn to have the wind behind them. Whenever there was a lull in play I could occupy myself watching the old fellas walking around the track or the young girl being taught by her grandad to ride a bike. We had a bloke on a scooter doing a couple of laps as if he were Barry Sheene and then equally memorably someone galloping a circuit on a horse.

As the clock ticked down to full-time I started to worry a little about running out of beer. I’d paced myself perfectly for ninety minutes but the prospect of extra time and penalties was something that I hadn’t allowed for.

That’s about a quarter of the crowd.

There were less than ten minutes and half a can remaining when Kwangwoon made the breakthrough. Their right back made a perfectly timed overlapping run that took him past the opposing full back and left him clean through on the advancing keeper. He beat the goalie to the ball and clipped it past him to open the scoring.

Yeungnam understandably showed a touch more urgency in the closing minutes but couldn’t take their chances. Kwangwoon made it safe with the last kick of the game, one of their strikers controlling the ball eight yards out and turning well before stroking the ball home.

The next round sees the slightly bigger guns of the third tier National League and the new second tier K-League join the competition. So, I imagine that’ll be more chairs and fewer horses. Probably.

It’s the new season and about bloody time too. Whilst basketball is all well and good, it’s not football. Not even close.

And in case you were wondering why you haven’t heard of Jiangsu Sainty, it’s because they are from China. This was a Champions League fixture as the Korean domestic leagues don’t kick off until the weekend. Still, it’s a football match and so I went along.

I heard the hum of the vuvuzelas as I emerged from the subway station. There’s only really Seoul where that nonsense still goes on these days. In Korea anyway. I imagine the South Africans won’t have consigned theirs to the skip yet. I wondered if the noise was actually a recording as it seemed suspiciously loud for a game with what I suspected was going to be a pretty low attendance.

I bought a twelve thousand won ticket for the East stand. I usually go behind the goal with whatever away fans are visiting, but on this occasion I fancied observing the Chinese supporters from somewhere that gave me a decent look at them.

There were about three hundred of them and initially they made as much noise as the thousand Seoul fans in the opposite end. Both sets of fans waved massive flags but in a nice touch a lot of the Chinese fellas were also waving red flags that looked to be the perfect size to stick in the top of a sandcastle.

“Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer…”

Seoul had all of last season’s foreign players back for another year although I didn’t recognise Escudero at first as he’s spent the winter growing some hair. It wasn’t long before they made an impact and ten minutes in Escudero rolled the ball into the path of Dejan Damjanovic who stroked it home from fifteen yards out.

Sainty had a couple of big defenders who looked as if they had spent their off-season eating pies rather than growing their hair. They were dangerous at set pieces, particularly if they collided with anyone, but not particularly mobile when asked to defend. With half an hour gone a neat passing move from Seoul was too much for the statuesque centre halves and Yun Il Lock finished well to put the hosts two up.

Gratuitous admittedly, but so wrong at football.

At half time I moved to the North West corner, partly because I could but mainly so that I could get an idea of how many people were in the East stand. Not many is the answer. The official attendance was announced as 6,321 and whilst I didn’t actually count the people there, the crowd was small enough for me to be confident in my estimate of there actually being around four thousand fans inside the stadium.

Seoul have taken the decision for this season to close the upper tier in all but the West stand. I’m not sure why they’ve left that one open as there’s usually only around fifty people who choose to sit there. The blocking off of the areas will probably reduce the capacity to around forty thousand I’d imagine and even for the games against Suwon that will be more than enough these days.

The view from the north-west corner.

Ten minutes into the second half Molina flicked the ball on to find Yun Il Lock in space and the kid notched his second of the game. It didn’t take long for Dejan to get his second as well as another smart passing move on the hour ended with him taking the score to four-nil.

Sainty pulled a goal back ten minutes from time when the Seoul defence failed to cut out a ball played across the box. It gave the away fans something to sing about but it didn’t mean much.

This was from the first half.

I nipped away a few minutes from time, not so much to avoid the traffic as there was none, but more because the temperature had dropped quite significantly. As I approached the subway I heard the sound of a fifth goal for Seoul being celebrated. A quick check the next day revealed Molina had tucked it away, a fair reward for his performance I thought.

Five – one was how it finished, the win taking Seoul to the top of their group.