Tavern Hangout LIVE: Korea’s 23 man roster unveiled

…and it’s over. Thanks to Jae Chee, Jinseok Yang, Jeremy Paek, and Tim Lee – it was hella fun. Now if you decide to wade into this (which I do recommend) know that this is a billion $ operation (minus a billion $) -and we had to overcome a number of technical glitches.  Nevertheless, there are some really neat discussions and through it some interesting things came to light when deconstructing Hong Myong-Bo’s 23 man roster going to the World Cup. …and like any spur of the moment conversation, I forgot to talk about a number of things. The french call this the ‘spirit of the stairwell,’  -all the stuff you wanted to say but thought of after the conversation ended.

The old Tavern owner forgot to mention in the Hangout that Jae and his crystal ball was pretty right on the money when it came to forecasting Hong’s 23. In an upcoming issue of FIFA World Cup magazine to be published in England, Jae predicted accurately 22 out of 23 players that was eventually named midweek (he only missed Ji Dong-Won -had Yun Il-Lok instead). But Jae had submitted this in a profile of the World Cup Taeguk Warriors squad close to 5 months ago!

In a botched 1st attempt to air the Tavern Hangout (I somehow accidentally made the broadcast available to viewers 18 and older -then in trying to fix it had to set up the broadcast from scratch) I had a snazzy powerpoint that went over some interesting stats about this World Cup edition of the Taeguk Warriors (it even drew ooohs and ahhs from the other Tavern writers). Damn!  Well, here’s the short non-snazzy text version which I aggregated the stats from the Choson Ilbo -cause that’s how I roll:

Taller…younger…(some) experienced?

• Height Average 184 cm – one of the taller squads in recent memory
• Average age: 25.1 years – younger than the 2010 WC squad by close to 2 years
• Youngest Player: Son Heung-Min -age 21
• 1 player in his 3rd world Cup: Park Chu-young
• 74% players are based overseas
• 9 players based in Europe

I had prepared all these cool images to show (which I borrowed aggregate style from Korean media):

and from a Dan Orlowitz tweet:

Where did South Korea’s 23 come from?

K-League        6

J-League         4

CSL                 3

EPL/Champ     5

Bundesliga      4

Saudi PL          1

I did talk briefly about Barcelona’s transfer ban lifted temporarily while they fight FIFA’s ruling that for now has made Lee Seung-Woo, Paik Seung-Ho and Jang Gyeol-Hee ineligible for regular season academy games. Above is a photo I was planning to show viewers to the hangout.

Finally I referenced tonight a Cha Bum-Kun blog post where he visited Park Joo-Ho in a hospital for a 2nd surgery on his toes.  When you see the pictures, this might give those angry (including myself) about Park’s exclusion from the 23 a bit of insight into Hong’s reasoning for the decision.

It would’ve been a nice photo to show during the broadcast, but damn if my tab disappeared on me. Technology – love it AND hate it. I’m married for life.

– Roy Ghim / aka the Old Tavern Owner

Tim Lee’s spirits mulling in the stairwell: