Jesse Lingard (32, Seoul), who has a name value that the K League has not had in the past 40 years, is changing the “question mark” toward him into an “feel mark” after four months of joining the team.
Multiple soccer officials who met at the K-League site in the last two to three weeks poured out praise for Lingard in one voice. The responses include “I didn’t know that a big star who played for England’s prestigious Premier League (EPL) United would play so hard in the K-League,” “It’s nice to see the player trying to use his teammates around him somehow,” and “I think he loves Seoul more than the existing Seoul players.”
There are many officials who say, “I’m wrong.” When Lingard joined Seoul in February, he would have visited Korea for non-football purposes, and he thought Seoul was also recruiting for marketing purposes. At that time, the fact that Lingard had a personal clothing brand and an e-sports team drew attention, and Lingard uniforms were sold like hot cakes. At that time, many soccer players predicted that they would return to England without meeting the contract period. 스포츠토토
Contrary to high expectations, Lingard was away from the ground for about two months from mid-March to mid-May after undergoing procedures to deal with his knee injury. Expectations for Lingard have cooled in line with the sluggishness of Seoul, where Kim Ki-dong was newly appointed. You can see it by looking at the change in the number of spectators. Although Lingard’s home debut match in Seoul was held on March 10, the number of spectators returned to the previous year’s level of 20,000 at home games in April and May. In mid-June, a British media outlet even rumored to be moving to Leicester City, and Lingard countered that it was a rumor.
There were growing voices of concern outside, but at that time, the solidarity between Lingard and the Seoul players and the Lingard coaching staff became stronger internally. In situations where a player needs a point, he often uses a strategy to secure one point by locking the ball, or makes changes by banking on a player with strong fighting spirit. It was not unreasonable to decide to remove Lingard from the starting lineup, which has relatively low pressure. However, Kim rather left Lingard, who recovered from injury, to key to his recovery from slump. He started eight consecutive games from the 13th round against Daegu on May 19 to the 20th round against Jeonbuk on April 29. With tight schedule every three to four days, Lingard was an exception in the rotation. He expressed his desire to adapt faster to the team and the league and to focus on the team. Lingard, who is thorough in self-management, easily managed his schedule of murder in hot weather in Korea. He played only 45 minutes in the first half, which has significantly changed from the beginning of the season when he was struggling.