In less than an hour, Korea’s U21 squad which includes the likes of Ryu Seung-Woo and Moon Chang-Jin will be facing off against Colombia’s young team for another Toulon tournament group stage match. A surprise for US Tavern goers waking up this morning: BeInSport will be broadcasting the match live at 11:15 am EST / 7:15 PST. UPDATE: Moon Chang-Jin converted a PK in the 67th minute, Korea brought down Colombia 0-1. Korea faces England on Wednesday.
Quick updates as the Tavern owner is on the go:
– by now you’ve heard after all the trouble between QPR and the Korean FA over Yun Suk-Young -whether or not he had clearance to play in last Saturday’s playoff final at Wembley, Yun sat on the bench while QPR got a last minute goal by Bobby Zamora to get the Rangers back to the Premiership. By all accounts, Derby looked sharper but couldn’t finish QPR off. Harry Redknapp did sub out Clint Hill in the 2nd half as expected, but put in Hoilett Karl Henry instead of Yun (tactics possibly due to Rangers being down to 10 men). Nevertheless Yun did have limited part to play in helping the Rangers with promotion and exclaimed this from his twitter feed:
I’m so happy at this moment! 지금 이 순간만큼은 행복하다. 힘든과정을 이겨낸 값진 시간들. pic.twitter.com/nQXcsmRBd3
— suk-young yun (@syyun317) May 24, 2014
He is now back in Korea, arriving yesterday looking dapper despite jetlag. The glass half full I guess is that unlike Diego Costa, he is at his training camp uninjured.
ROAD TO RIO | Fresh from helping QPR win promotion to the EPL, @syyun317 arrived in Korea for WC preparations. pic.twitter.com/v8Z0Ck2I5w — Asian Football Feast (@AsianFballFeast) May 25, 2014
Last word on the dispute over Yun, turns out it was QPR who was the dodgy character in all this after all.
QPR ignored Korea FA request (& many phone calls)to release Yun for WC duty despite FIFA regs. Yun not even starting. Classy
— John Duerden (@JohnnyDuerden) May 24, 2014
Well a good luck to the Rangers next year in the Premiership – they’re gonna need it. Weighted down by a calamitous debt built by 2+ years of inept management and ill advised player transfers (by contrast Atletico Madrid’s team that nearly won the Champions League Saturday cost less than QPR’s current team) should make for excellent football, right? Right? [sounds of summer with frogs chirping in the background].
And one more quick update: after a decent run in the Asian Women’s Cup, a depleted Korea [short of Ji So-Yun after Chelsea recalled her back to England] squad lost to China for the 3rd round match 2-1. Overall there’s more good news than bad, Korea qualified for the 2015 Women’s World Cup and Park Eun-Sun wins the tournament golden boot with 6 goals overall.
Hoilett started the match. It was Karl Henry who came on for Clint Hill. In fairness to Redknapp, he probably would’ve inserted Yun for the last third or quarter of the match as he has often done for the latter part of the season but with Kranjcar coming off injured and Gary O’Neil being sent off, he didn’t really have that option.
My bad, Karl Henry – and Hoilett started – thanks for letting me know – I’ll get that fixed.
As to Redknapp, I had a feeling he’d insert Yun later as he did in the Wigan match 2nd leg – but as you said, the red card changed the dynamics. Still, for all that trouble to keep him around you’d think he’d start him, but that’s just me.