Pro football season set for earliest start to accommodate World Cup
The South Korean professional football will have its earliest start to a season in 2022 to accommodate participation in the FIFA World Cup in November, the league office announced Thursday. The 2022 K League 1 season will kick off Feb. 19, the fastest opening to a season by eight days. The 2010 and 2021 campaigns both began Feb. 27. The dozen teams in the top flight will play 38 matches. They will first play each other three times and after 33 contests, the top six and the bottom six clubs wil
FC Seoul coach appreciative of hard-working veterans
With FC Seoul having gone through a topsy-turvy 2021 season that included a coaching change, new bench boss An Ik-soo decided to give some of his veterans extra rest before the starting of offseason training camp. Conspicuous by their absences at FC Seoul's camp in Namhae, some 500 kilometers south of the capital city, are some of the club's most recognizable names: midfielders Ki Sung-yueng and Go Yohan, and forward Ji Dong-won. "They endured so much more than I did last year, and I want
K League scoring champion on nat'l team snub: 'I have to be better'
SEOGWIPO -- One of the great mysteries in South Korean football in recent months has been the continued absence of Jeju United striker Joo Min-kyu on the senior men's national team. Though he won the scoring title in the top-flight K League 1 last year with 22 goals in 34 matches, Joo has been consistently overlooked by national team head coach Paulo Bento. The Portuguese boss has sidestepped questions about not picking Joo on multiple occasions, saying he doesn't just look at a player's goal t
Midfielder wants to capitalize on rare opportunity with senior nat'l team
Gangwon FC midfielder Kim Dae-won is training with the senior men's national team for the first time in Turkey this month. He wants to make sure it won't be his last stint with the big boys. The 24-year-old is one of 26 players called up by head coach Paulo Bento for training camp ahead of two away World Cup qualifying matches. They have been working out since Monday and will face Iceland on Saturday and then Moldova on Jan. 21 in friendly matches. Since this camp isn't part of the FIFA inter
Barca youth product Lee Seung-woo seeking more playing time on home soil
SEOGWIPO -- After bouncing around multiple European clubs with little success, Lee Seung-woo, a product of FC Barcelona's famous youth academy, has landed with Suwon FC in South Korea's K League 1 with one major goal in mind. He wants to be on the field more. "The biggest motivating factor was that I wanted to play more minutes. I wasn't getting much action with my other teams, and that's why I decided to come home," Lee said at a press conference Tuesday during Suwon FC's training c
England-based veterans headline S. Korean roster for Women's Asian Cup
A trio of England-based veterans, including the high-scoring midfielder Ji So-yun, will try to lead South Korea to their first continental women's football title this month in India. The Korea Football Association (KFA) finalized the 23-player squad for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women's Asian Cup on Monday. Ji, South Korean football's all-time leading scorer with 59 goals in 131 matches, will be competing in her fourth Asian Cup. The 30-year-old midfielder for Chelsea FC Women wi
2nd-year coach for Ulsan looking to end long K League title drought
ULSAN -- Ulsan Hyundai FC brought in a new head coach for 2021 but ended up with the same result for a third straight season in the K League 1: finishing runners-up to Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors. It was a particularly bitter pillow to swallow for the bench boss, Hong Myung-bo, who had his club at the top of the tables in the early going and who, to this day, believes Ulsan were just as good as Jeonbuk. Ultimately, though, Jeonbuk finished two points ahead of Ulsan, 76-74. While Jeonbuk extended th