Yes, it has been a long ass time Tavern people. Reason for the long absence: life kinda getting in the way of updating properly. This has left a bit of a gap with lots of developments unfolding in Korea and Europe, including the Korean Women’s team getting decent results in a tough Asian Cup group of death to navigate their way onto a Women’s World Cup qualifying spot for France 2019! We will atone for missing out on that news soon enough, excuses over: on to the weekend roundup. And it’s a pretty busy and quite massive weekend for Korean ballers in Europe. Historic one could even say. Lee Seung-Woo AND Park Yi-Young with their first Serie A and 2.Bundesliga goals? Lee Kang-In with his 1st professional goal with Valencia B (and could he feature for Valencia next year in the Champions League?) + Kwon Chang-Hoon and Hwang Hee-Chan scoring and into double digits for their clubs? It’s a goalspalooza…

Let’s get Korean Footballers Abroad involved here quickly, he also gives a quick Midweek Preview with vitally important fixtures and we’ll expand his take on how KPA’s fared this weekend:

A fairly sad Saturday with Swansea and Tottenham both blowing opportunities was followed by a better Sunday, particularly outside the regular guys on this list, with Ji Dong Won having a huge game to boost Darmstadt out of the relegation zone, Park Yi Young scoring to guarantee safety for St Pauli, and Lee Kang In scoring for Valencia’s B team. Tuesday Ki Sung Yueng — Swansea host Southampton at 2:45 PM ET on NBCSN. Obviously this match is critical to their survival, but Swansea played incredibly flatly in a winnable match on the weekend and now find themselves in the relegation zone. Fortunately, Swansea have their fates in their hands still and a reasonable final two opponents. But it was bad on Saturday and Ki was only ok as he struggled to find openings to create attacks. He was subbed off in final few minutes but that was only reflective of other players doing even worse. Because of that, Ki should start but perhaps with so little offense, Carvahal shakes it up to get goals. Wednesday Son Heung Min — Tottenham host Newcastle at 2:45 PM on NBC Gold. Son was a bench as Tottenham really messed up vs. lowly West Brom. Son eventually got on and his directness resulted in a half decent chance when he cut in and shot well. But he didn’t get too many quality touches with Kane looking poor on top, and things generally a disjointed mess overall. Lucas played well so perhaps we’ll see one or two of Son and Lucas come into the starting XI but they need to step up to keep their top four position. Recap Lee Chung Yong — While it was great to see Bolton escape relegation by scoring two goals in final minutes and Crystal Palace assure safety with a win, LCY himself did nothing besides warm the bench. Perhaps Hodgson throws him some bench minutes now to apologize for keeping him and not using him ahead of WC. Lee Seung Woo — Came on as a sub and scored his first Serie A goal and it was a well taken volley from the top of the box. Unfortunately it came on a loss that relegated Verona. On the one hand, perhaps LSW might get a bigger role down there, but on the other, second tier tends to be more physical which is not his strong suit. Will be interesting to see what happens. Suk Hyun Jun — Troyes lost again, and now have very thin chances of survival. Suk came on as the third sub so he’s still struggling for opportunities despite goal last weekend. Kwon Chang Hoon — A well timed run and blast meant a tenth goal for KCH and it sounded like he played a great game again. Koo Ja Cheol — Injured.

Tavern Owner back with you. Thanks to Korean Footballers Abroad, check out his (way more consistent than the Tavern’s) blog site here. He did briefly mention Koreans with some extraordinary performances in 2.Bundesliga and Lee Kang-In with his first professional goal with Valencia B. But that’s not all – to cap off a spectacular Sunday for KPA’s, Hwang Hee-Chan even got in on the goal scoring action for Salzburg. And it might be interesting to bring Kim Ki-Hee into the conversation now that Jeonbuk’s Kim Min-Jae is out of the KNT CB equation with a pretty awful cracked shinbone suffered last weekend.

Ji Dong-Won, the Augsburg forward on loan to Cha Bum-Kun’s first German side Darmstadt, notched an assist and scored for his side in a 0:3 win away at Jahn Regensburg. Darmstadt’s win gets them just out of danger, but still only a point away from the drop zone.

Park Yi-Young –he scored a pretty important goal for St Pauli at home against Armina Bielefeld, it turned out to be the only goal of the match and is his first goal for his Hamburg side. He’s a product of TNT FC, a Korean based club that facilitates finding pro players that have fallen through the developmental pipeline cracks in Korean football – they work to build up their confidence and skills to eventually be on the radar of bigger clubs. Park is the biggest name to come out of that ‘rehab’ network. The defenseman has worked his way into a starting role and according to reports, had a superb game that involved good footwork on top of a fantastic goal.

39' @park2young receives the ball just outside the box, nutmegs a defender and then, cool as you like, slips the ball between Ortega and the near post into the net. Take a bow son! #fcspdsc 1-0 pic.twitter.com/hMMEV9DIxu — FC St. Pauli English (@fcstpauli_EN) May 6, 2018

17 year old Lee Kang-In scored his first pro goal for Valencia B. They go on to win 2:0 against Sabadell He’s had a meteoric rise through the academy and there’s speculation he could see a 1st team appearance next season. Realistically he’s likely full time Valencia B with a possible #10 role, which would involve training frequently with the 1st team. With Valencia qualifying for the Champions League, he could see an expanded reserve role for the A team, but again, that’s speculative at this point, but not out of the realm of possibility.

{see Lee Kang-In’s goal around the 2:58 mark}

Hwang Hee-Chan did this on Sunday as well:

https://twitter.com/taeguk_warrior/status/993221197071572992

We’d be remiss if we didn’t show video highlights of Lee Seung-Woo’s 1st Serie A goal (scrub to 1:55):

And Kwon’s strike (interesting that he’s been recently tasked with being a center forward, filling in temporarily for their injured designated striker):

His movement before the goal was very intuitive, sensing the possibilities, with a start/stop motion he ran past the defense before they could decipher what he was up to, staying onsides and then confidently using his left foot to blast it past the keeper. It’s his 10th Ligue 1 goal, matching his 10 goals scored for Suwon Bluewings in 2015.

That segues to this:

By scoring against Guingamp, Kwon Chang-hoon becomes the sixth Korean to score at least 10 league goals in a single season in Europe after Cha Bum-kun, Seol Ki-hyeon, Park Chu-young, Son Heung-min and Hwang Hee-chan. — Steve Han • 한만성 (@RealSteveScores) May 6, 2018

Youngest Korean footballers to score in Europe’s top 5 leagues. via @OneVolante pic.twitter.com/ehWKyD1nKp — Steve Han • 한만성 (@RealSteveScores) May 7, 2018

That’s not all, Ji So-Yun and Chelsea Ladies beat Arsenal in front of 45,000 at Wembley to win the Women’s FA Cup. Ji played a vital role and while she didn’t get on the scoreline, she helped to boss the midfield around to control the tempo for Chelsea. Too bad her goals against Wolfsburg wasn’t enough to see them into the Women’s Champions League finals, but a deep run all the way to the semis make for an impressive season thus far for Chelsea.

https://twitter.com/ChelseaLFC/status/992838378465964033

Onto the United States, center back Kim Ki-Hee made his home debut for Seattle in front of 40,000 supporters.

https://twitter.com/kihee4/status/992909608682274817

Kim reportedly did well. Kim goes 90 minutes with no goals conceded, Seattle with a scoreless draw vs Columbus. Could he be a possible CB contender for the KNT going to Russia for the World Cup? With Kim Min-Jae out with a shattered shinbone, answers point to…perhaps.

Extra Time:

Ji Dong Won and Park Yi Young both in Kickers BL2 TOTW pic.twitter.com/ttUpm8VNbK — Korean Footballers (@KoreaFootAbroad) May 7, 2018

We’ll try to recap later the Women’s Asian Cup, which saw Korea advance to the Women’s World Cup with a 5-0 win over the Philippines – Korea qualifies for it’s 3rd entry to the big dance. Until then, thanks for hanging with the Tavern despite the last several week’s absence. We’ll have World Cup coverage on the way and after that… ?

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