Weekend Listings 10.19-10.20 / Tavern Kickaround

It’s likely that a number of Koreans playing abroad in Europe will get rested due to long international flights back from national team call-ups. But one never knows…from the Korean Footballers Abroad site:

One result already in: Leverkusen bested Hoffenheim 2-1 today. Son was on the bench and rested. UPDATE: uh oh, bad karma for Leverkusen – that win was courtesy of a ghost goal – the ref didn’t catch Kiessling’s header go through the side netting!  Or maybe the universe owed them a goal – who knows?

Ki Sung-Yeung will not be facing Swansea as he’s on loan by the Swans to Sunderland. Koo Ja-Cheol sustained an injury in the 3-1 KNT victory over Mali, reports are that he may be out of action for up to 2 weeks.

Tavern kickaround: Park Chu-Young’s impending emergency loan to Wigan is… well, we’re not exactly sure what the status is at the moment. Some Korean media sites announced the deal dead — but yesterday Owen Coyle speaking in Wigan Today said he’s still holding out the possibility of a deal working out so Park can join [Tavern note: atrocious use of puns in the headline. Absolutely atrocious].  That article and quote from Coyle: legit.  So negotiations between Arsenal and Wigan are apparently continuing – stay tuned.

CJay, our man in Wales tells us the crisis in Cardiff City is for the time being – somewhat averted. Shit hit the fan at the start of the international break, with Iain Moody -Malky Mackay’s head of recruitment, practically forced out by owner Vincent Tan and replaced by a 23 year old friend of Tan’s son – a youngster who painted the outside of Cardiff City Stadium…but otherwise has absolutely NO football experience. None whatsoever. A come-to-jesus meeting took place early last week with the possibility that Mackay was so angry and incensed that he would resign. Now THAT would’ve been an even bigger / more epic crisis for Cardiff City. Concluding the meeting, Mackay was given a larger role in the board, Tan promised to absorb more club debt …and the Moody crisis quietly shoved under the rug. So, crisis over, right? That is until the next Vincent Tan-trum —Ka BAM!!!  Didn’t see that bad pun coming, DID ya?

Still disappointed: Once upon a time, One World Sports aired some hard to find Asian football matches for American cable/dish TV audiences. Fast forward to today, they still air hard to find Asian football games, save for one difference. No more K-League. A trend that started a few weeks ago, OWS once again isn’t airing a single K-League match on their programming grid this weekend. Despite promises from their PR spokesperson to get back to me with an explanation – instead I get from them –nada. I am, however, getting OWS twitter messages that seems to imply that everyone should be excited about the fact they are airing NASL league NY Cosmos games. Yeah, 3rd tier american soccer – just what I always wanted to see on my TV. 

Next week will be the start of a 2 leg Asian Champions League Final between FC Seoul and Evergrande. Asian Champions League matches in Korea usually get WOEFUL attendance at Korean stadiums -save for one game – the home title match. Expect Seoul to be rocking on October 26 for the first Asian title game in that club’s history. Meanwhile in China, not all is well with disgruntled fans angry about astronomical ticket prices for the 2nd leg match. Prices range between $100 – $1300!  Holy f*)#@!  For the Asian Champions League?  I know they are trying to build a good tournament brand, but UEFA Champions League it is not. And they are charging $125 for away supporters. Good luck trying to sell that to FC Seoul supporters.

Good news: On Tuesday Women’s U19 team beat Japan 2-0 and earlier today beat North Korea 2-1 in the AFC U19 Women’s Championship tourney.  One more game against Australia – a win there and South Korea will clinch the AFC U19 Championship and a ticket to the U20 World Cup. Jang Sel-gi has been beasting it up, scoring against North Korea today -and contributing 5 out of 7 goals scored against Myanmar last weekend. Game against Australia is set for Sunday 2 am US EST and 3 pm Korea time. The AFC has been streaming the matches, check their website here. Going back to the Korean/Japan match, the passion of the haniljeon is very evident, check out the goals by Yu-ri and substitute Kim In-ji (fast forward to 1:40 and 1:43):

Tavern goers – your comments are still getting caught in the spam filter. I’m going to have to do some maintenance around the Tavern to see why this is happening – and castigate the Tavern Maintenance man.  In the meantime, we appreciate your patience. Rest assured, your comments are not getting trashed, but if they don’t automatically go up – they eventually will be. TAVERN MAINTENANCE MAN! Where the hell could he be?

Got to wake up early to coach my son’s last U6 game of the fall season. Our team is undefeated so far. DJ Miles has been in good form, on a season long 8 game scoring streak (of course, this is U6 soccer we’re talking about here). For the record, I’m telling the kids to keep this in perspective, winning isn’t everything, but having fun is the most important thing.  But off the record, I expect our team to CRUSH the opposition with a flawless and flowing offense. I’ll except nothing less than a 9-0 score.  Nobody snitch and tell the wife, with sentiments like that out in public -she’ll just scold me again for being a typical Asian tiger dad and teaching Miles bad sportsmanship. Dammit, somebody has to instill killer instincts – am I right?  Tavern out. Chal-ga-yo!!