Ki Leads Swansea past Man U – Weekend Roundup (Aug 16-17)

While Germany was doing some Cup action, the English Premier League kicked off with an early fixture between Manchester United and Swansea City. With Ki Sung-Yueng getting the start, find out how he fared and more, with goals galore in this Weekend Roundup.

Here’s a quick table to summarize:

[table “” not found /]

Ki Scores His First, Premier League’s First
Ki Sung-Yueng scored his first goal of the year, his first goal for Swansea and the first goal of the new 2014-15 English Premier League season, driving this shot into the corner against Manchester United in Louis Van Gaal’s EPL managerial debut. Despite the Swans conceding a close range overhead kick from a set piece to Wayne Rooney, it was new signing Sylfi Sigurdsson to the rescue, with Swansea taking all 3 points in their season opener in Manchester. It earned him a place on the ESPN Team of the Week AND a Man of the Match award.

Take a look at the goal (sorry for poor quality, I’ll look for a better one later):

Tavern Owner intruding>> some interesting points about that goal and the match in general:

  • Ki’s goal, supplied by Sigurdsson, was the end result of an impressive 29 pass play. Swanselona indeed.
  • It was Swansea’s first victory at Old Trafford in league play.
  • It was Man U’s first home opener loss since 1972. In contrast, last year Man U dispatched Swans -also the opener.
  • First time EPL utilized the invisible spray -that the MLS adopted and since used in the 2014 World Cup.
  • Ashley Young had unfortunately had  a bird dropping right in his mouth during the match. BLAUGH.
  •  At the end of the half, Louis Van Gaal temporarily ended the much talked about 3-4-1-2 formation – which worked well during their barnstorming pre-season in the US, but was particularly exposed by Ki. It looked like Juan Mata had left Ki unmarked in the center, and with quite a bit of space to explore, Ki was in excellent position to advance and score.

In other Premier League news, Yun Suk-Young didn’t feature for QPR.

DFB-Pokal Action in Germany
Over in Germany, it was the First Round of their Cup tournament, the DFB-Pokal. Ryu Seung-Woo was brought on for Eintracht Braunschweig (I’m going to have to get used to spelling that correctly…) at halftime, making his first appearance on loan to the 2.Bundesliga side. (He’s already on loan and now loaned again. What’s the term for that?) His former teammate, Son Heung-Min, played some 30-odd minutes for Bayer Leverkusen in a commanding 6-0 win, courtesy to 5 goals from Stefan Kiessling. With a Champions League Play-off today (Tuesday), those players didn’t play too much, but that didn’t stop Son from getting his First Goal of the Season. Have a look (again, sorry for poor quality):

Koo Ja-Cheol and Park Joo-Ho featured for Mainz in their cup tie against Chemnitz and played the entire game. It was a goalfest, with Koo putting Mainz ahead in the second half, only for teams to exchange goals and tie it up before Full Time. So off to extra time they went, and it was yet another late equalizer, this time for Mainz, sending the game to penalties. The Koreans converted their penalties, Park Joo-Ho with a certain ‘swagger’, but the new and young Mainz keeper, Loris Karius, couldn’t keep any of them out, as Mainz crash out of the DFB-Pokal in flames.

Highlights will be posted here if they are made available.

Kim Jin-Su made his debut (in a competitive game) for Hoffeheim, in a 9-0 rout of Uhlenhorster. He contributed on the 7th goal, with a long range free kick pushed away by the opposition keeper, but leaving his teammate Sven Schipplock to tap in his 4th goal of the game. Otherwise, he didn’t really have much to do in this rout. The newest KPA had this to say pre-game in an interview (via interpreter and Google Translate, courtesy of BigSoccer) to Bild:

I look forward to since the first day in Hoffenheim on the Bundesliga. In addition, already feel a certain positive tension. The Official matches are coming closer. The coach decides if and when I give my debut.

Hong Jeong-Ho didn’t feature in Augsburg’s DFB-Pokal tie, he seems to have been rested for the Bundesliga season opener against… Hoffeheim. As for Ji Dong-Won… he’s not really in the coach’s plans it seems for now.

Championship Boys
Kim Bo-Kyung, who played over 80 minutes in a Capital One Cup tie last week, was on the bench but did not feature for Cardiff City, as Kenwyn Jones had a brace to secure all three points for the Bluebirds. Meanwhile, Lee Chung-Yong played the entire game against Nottingham Forest, and was largely invisible and had a shot away. As for rumours that he might be transfered, manager Dougie Freedman had this to say pre-match, via The Bolton News:

“I believe we’ve got to be up front with the fans and say ‘this is the situation’ – any player who doesn’t want to play for the club is more than welcome to move on,” Freedman said. “But Chungy has never given any impression he’s unhappy and wants to leave – quite the opposite, in fact.

The article also added that they are looking a signing a new contract with the South Korean midfielder.

That’s all for now, I’ll be back later to preview some midweek action that sees the Championship boys and a vital Champions League qualifier for Bayer Leverkusen.

About Tim Lee 321 Articles
The maple syrup guzzling kimchijjigae craving Korean-Canadian, eh?

1 Comment

Join in the Tavern's conversations -Leave a comment...

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.