Weekend Listing + Kickaround: Poyet ‘admits he’d picked Ji…’

We got the weekend listings, the European listings thanks once again to Korean Footballers Abroad + K-League Classic round 8 …. during the kickaround we discuss a few developments including the post Ji/Sunderland/clerical-error-gate revelations: Gus Poyet, after taking over midseason, confessed he would have played Ji Dong-Won but his hands were tied -all this before Ji’s January transfer to Augsburg which later revealed the surprise news he would go on to BVB in the summer…

But first, to the European listing this weekend April 12-13…which Korean Footballers Abroad advises about the start times in England: “Many of these kickoffs will have a 7 minute delay due to Hillsborough remembrance.”  [Times in US EST / TV US broadcast]

Day Time (ET) Player Club Opponent TV
Saturday 7:15 AM Yun Suk Young QPR Nottingham Forest BeIn
Saturday 9:30 AM Koo Ja Cheol Mainz Werder Bremen None
Saturday 9:30 AM Park Joo Ho Mainz Werder Bremen None
Saturday 10:00 AM Lee Chung Yong Bolton @Barnsley None
Saturday 10:00 AM Kim Bo Kyung Cardiff City @Southampton NBC Extra Time
Saturday 10:00 AM Ki Sung Yueng Sunderland Everton NBC Extra Time
Saturday 10:00 AM Park Chu Young Watford @Millwall None
Sunday 9:30 AM Son Heung Min Bayer Leverkusen Hertha Berlin None
Sunday 10:30 AM Park Ji Sung PSV Eindhoven Feyenoord Rotterdam GolTV
Sunday 11:30 AM Hong Jeong Ho Augsburg Hoffenheim None
Sunday 11:30 AM Ji Dong Won Augsburg Hoffenheim None
Wednesday 2:45 PM Ki Sung Yueng Sunderland @Man City NBCSN

In the K-League Classic (don’t forget to check out Jae’s excellent midweek roundup, including good updates regarding Park Eun-Sun + Korean FA Cup action):

Saturday, April 12
Jeonbuk
1:30 AM
Ulsan
FC Seoul
3:00 AM
Gyeongnam
Steelers
3:00 AM
Jeju United
Sunday, April 13
Dragons
1:00 AM
Busan IPark
Seongnam
1:00 AM
Sangju Sangmu
Incheon
3:00 AM
Suwon
All times are in US Eastern Time.  Games streaming live on Youtube at SpoTV.  [we can’t view games embedded on the Tavern, but you can go directly to their Youtube site to watch games live -and possibly on-demand post match. For example, you can start here for the  Pohang / Jeju match]:

What to watch out for this weekend in Europe:

      • The relegation battles seem to be a recurring theme for the past several years with the KPA’s. This year is no different with Ki Sung-Yeung‘s bottom dwelling Sunderland squad in the deepest of holes with little hope to get out. Why? They’re at the bottom, their fixtures for the next 5 matches look daunting AND they need Fulham, West Brom and Norwich to lose practically all of their remaining matches.  Cardiff, just a notch above Sunderland, has an easier set of fixtures, but they look utterly lost at the helm – Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s January signings have been a bust. Way to go Vincent Tan, way to go. As much as I love Cardiff and the long suffering supporters of this proud club, Kim Bo-Kyung‘s agent should be working around the clock to get him out of South Wales pronto. Anyway, Ki should get the start vs Everton, while Kimbo will play depending on what Solskjær’s ouija board tells him.
      • US viewers will get another chance to possibly see Yun Suk-Young suit up for QPR.  Yun won man of the match a few weeks ago, a 1-3 win at Middlesbrough.  Yun did see the last 13 minutes of a 2-0 loss at Blackburn last Tuesday.
      • Not 100% sure but Lee Chung-Yong might’ve had the assist in Tuesday’s 1-2 win at Doncaster. Here’s ESPNFC: “Lee Chung-yong headed down a free-kick and Mason slammed the ball home in fine style from a tight angle.”  However, no record of an assist was registered in his name. Clerical error strikes again? Lee probably in the starting XI at Barnsley.
      • It’s a bit baffling but Park Chu-Young’s relatively new toe injury will hampering his return to Watford’s lineup. How many minutes has Park played for the hornets so far? 75 minutes? The roller coaster nature of his career continues. Will he see any more action for Watford this season? update: I just saw this in the twittersphere

         

      • Injuries, injuries, Park Joo-Ho looks to be out for this weekend for Mainz, which seems to be of concern for their manager.  Look for Koo Ja-Cheol to be in the lineup against Werder Bremen.
      • Kudos to Hong Jeong-Ho, part of the Augsburg squad that broke Bayern Munich’s 53 game unbeaten streak. Optimistic: Ji recovered enough to be on the pitch with Hong for Augsburg’s clash with Hoffenheim. A remarkable result last weekend, impressive year overall -and it’s only Augsburg’s 3rd season in the Bundesliga!  Concerning Augsburg’s Korean duo, the Bundesliga’s english language site has a translated video (including a bad 70’s kung fu style overdub of their voices) of Hong and Ji’s interview about their season so far in Germany, German language lessons (3 hours a week), and Ji’s awkward goal against his future employers at BVB. Oh, almost forgot, living legend Cha Bum-Kun drops by Augsburg:

         

      • Son Heung-Min, is rumored to be a target by Juventus (excited Jae?) – that according to tottojuve.com
      • Son’s manager Hyppia was sacked after loss to HSV and falling to 5th in the Bundesliga…but wait, some clause in his contract means if the team does eventually qualify for the Champions League, Hyppia could return as manager for Bayer Leverkusen. That’s some contract…
      • More Ryu Seung-Woo please!  I didn’t see the match, but from all accounts, he looked impressive despite the few minutes on the pitch in Bayer’s loss to HSV.

This was so one week ago, but between a wedding in Mexico and my 17 month old daughter down with hand foot & mouth disease (oh the joy), I missed the mini-news surrounding the (non) controversy of Sunderland playing Ji Dong-Won in the fall without proper international credentials -nearly losing 3 losing points in the matter. The Blackcats bad luck (turned out to be incompetent clerical filing) continues, but it could have been much worse. In what some in the English media describe as possibly a hushed up affair between the FA and the club, Sunderland only suffered a slap-on-the-wrist fine with club secretary Liz Coley resigning in the aftermath.  I would agree, more transparency was needed, but “Ji-gate” will be a mere after-thought – probably since Sunderland is on their way down – but a bigger headache for the FA noisily goes away since they will not be re-playing the League Cup and FA Cup matches.

The more interesting revelation that comes from “Ji-gate” was Poyet telling the Daily Mail that after the clerical error was discovered, he couldn’t play Ji -preferring to keep the situation quiet -but here’s the kicker: he would have played him had he been eligible.  So in the end, there was quite a lot of playing time Ji essentially lost due to simply paperwork error. Insane. Undoubtedly that motivated Ji to seek the greener pastures of Germany -this time for good.  Poyet goes on in the interview praising Ji’s manner regarding the matter: “I can only talk him as a professional and he was outstanding. 
I explained the situation to him and he acted very professionally. He waited. He didn’t say a word. He left the football club with all our best wishes and he deserves credit for how he coped personally with the situation.” 

There you go. In a way (or in my demented egotistical imagination), it’s like Gus was quasi-apologizing directly to me- or at least all Tavern goers. More from Poyet :

People maybe now know why we couldn’t play him.

I’m not too much into comments and I don’t have Twitter but I can imagine some people love Ji and they’re saying when I wasn’t playing him every week and he’s not even on the bench they were killing me but they didn’t know. I hope they now understand why.”

Gus, you had me at ‘hello’.  (wait…did he even say hello?)

PS. You might have heard Christian Benteke is badly injured and won’t make the World Cup for Belgium. I don’t like to deal in schadenfreude (it’s bad juju), so I won’t, but it could be a blow to Belgium’s chances in the World Cup. That said, they still got Hazard and Lukaku – the KNT’s backline will have their work cut out for them this June…

Thanks to Jae, very cool news about the U16 Mondial Football Montaigu tournament in France which will include the Barcelona academy kids Lee Seung-Woo and Jang Gyeol-Hee – if you didn’t hear about that, read it at the Tavern here.

Whoa, we have so much more -but I think I’ll save all that for a Saturday brief update and get out a rare weekend kickaround. stay tuned.

About Roy Ghim 454 Articles
The old Tavern Owner

8 Comments

  1. Lukaku is more dangerous than Benteke in my opinion. So I think it’s more of a blow to us than to Belgium because Lukaku will be playing more.

    • The risk for Belgium is the loss of depth. Remember 2 bookings = 1 game suspension at WC, so if Lukaku gets them they don’t have anyone else really to back him up without a (possible) significant loss of quality.

  2. Haha “Kimbo will play whether Solskjaer’s ouija board tells him to or not” – gold.
    Also, I was just going through Nike’s ‘The Chance’ and in the first group of players a korean player Moon Seungmin was chosen, he plays in Sweden second tier at the moment and is only 21 but chances are they could possible make it to the top division this year. How does Sweden’s league compare with the rest of Europe?

  3. Juve to sign Son? I’ll believe it when I see it. However, it isn’t a secret that Conte has been looking to sign players that he can use in a 4-3-3, and Son would be a perfect fit for it.

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