Kim Jin-soo was the only player selected for the national team throughout Gangwon FC and Jeonbuk Hyundai. It is the current state of Jeonbuk and an element that shows that Gangwon players need continuity.
On the 27th, interim coach Kim Do-hoon announced the list of national teams to play in the A-match in June. With the number of first-time picks changing enough to have seven, Jeonbuk’s Kim Jin-soo was one. It is the first time since the A-match in June 2021 that only one Jeonbuk player has been selected for the A-team.
Jeonbuk has displayed its current status. Jeonbuk has been sluggish repeatedly in the league this season, sinking into the relegation zone. Currently, the team has ranked 10th in the league, falling short of its name value. However, Petrescu’s tactics with clear limitations also played a role, and Jeonbuk players were generally not at their best. Song Min-gyu, who had shown the best performance in the K-League, was out due to injury.
There is a reason why Kim Doo-hyun made remarks on the national team since his new press conference. When asked what he wants to make Jeonbuk in the long term, Kim expressed his ambition to change the team to “the team that produces the largest number of national team members” along with the team that players want to join and the team that is a bridgehead for overseas expansion. His answer implied that Jeonbuk, once the team that has the largest number of national team members along with Ulsan HD, did not have the same status as before.
“Only Kim Jin-su has been selected as a member of the national team, and Jeonbuk has many good players. I will make our players reevaluate,” Kim told a press conference before the match. He judged the reason why few national team players appeared in Jeonbuk was based on the overall performance of the team.
As Kim said, Jeonbuk produced a lot of national team members during the period when it was the strongest team in the K-League. In comparison, it is difficult to select even the best 11 players in the K-League among Jeonbuk players. In particular, considering that the announcement of the A-match list has a strong tendency to focus on performance in the recent season or two, Jeonbuk needs to make a dramatic rebound under Kim’s tactics at least in order to return to a club with a lot of national team members in the future.
Meanwhile, none of the players from Gangwon Province was included in the national team. Gangwon is currently ranked fourth in the league and has one of the best performance teams in the K-League. Considering that it has top K-League players such as Hwang Moon-ki and Yang Min-hyuk as well as potential candidates such as Lee Kwang-yeon and Lee Sang-hun, it is regrettable that none of them were selected at the latest A-match, which had many first-time picks.
Coach Yoon Jung-hwan explained the lack of continuity. “We have outstanding players this year, but national team players are selected players who have been consistently good for a long time,” he said in a press conference before the game. “If players continue to play, chances will come to any player,” adding that Gangwon players need to play consistently in order to elect them. 메이저놀이터
This can be seen from Hwang Mun-ki and his full-back position, which are considered to be the closest to the national team in Gangwon Province. Coach Kim Do-hoon recruited three players for the first time only for full-back resources, and Choi Joon, Hwang Jae-won, and Park Seung-wook (starting as center backs) have all shown steady performance in the K-League since the beginning of last season. Hwang was a full-fledged player in the second half of last season, and his performance was not long compared to them.
Still, with the current performance and performance, it is not too long before a national team player will emerge from Gangwon Province. “It is not because my performance is good, it is because my team is shining,” Hwang told reporters at the mixed zone. “As a player, the place that I want to go is the national team, but the top priority is the team I belong to. If I do my best in Gangwon Province and play my role well, I think I will be honored,” Hwang said, adding that if the national team shows consistent performance, the national team will naturally follow along.