oldtype

He was extremely good, lot of really good aspects to his game. Looks like a child, could see him getting bullied People were saying the same about De Gea. He'll be fine De Gea did get bullied tbf Not sure a South Korean bloke will get the same leeway He had a good tournament but he's been playing for one of the worst teams in the Korean league and was third-choice for the national team even up to the pre-tournament friendlies. Liverpool seems like a bit of a stretch. Also, has military service issues.

What an odd set of quarterfinals teams. Would like Uruguay and Belgium to win so we can get all the traditional favorites out of the bracket. England so all you nice gentlemen can catch a break for once. Croatia because Russia is horrible and obnoxious.

I've been wanting to post for ages about this world cup and how it's highlighted how certain teams and styles can properly fuck up so called better ones. Japan and South Korea are two good examples, but there's also Croatia struggling against Scandos. Point being I will be very surprised if Sweden is anything but a massive struggle. England don't do well against organised teams they can't dominate physically. Sweden will be a challenge. Will crush you with their physicality and work rate in midfield, try to steal a goal with long balls up to their two jumbo-sized strikers, and then park the fuck out of the bus for however much time is left. But they're not an obviously "better team" than England, and I think you have to take that at this stage.

Fuck off man

Stop trying to make this rational. Japan could be the best, most beautiful team in the world and I’d still want them to lose every match 5-0.

y tho Just an unpopular personal preference to see big teams reach the big matches. The occasional underdog win is fine but the line-up is getting a bit weak. Japan have played more entertaining football throughout the tournament though. From a pure spectator point, they'd be nicer. And since when are Belgium really a big team on the International stage? One semi (1986) and one QF (2014 - having not been at the two WCs prior). Japan, whilst not having reached a QF, have gotten out of the group stages on 3 of 6 occasions and have been at every WC since 1988. Belgium have been at more WCs (12), and made it out of the groups 5 times. Arguably, these two sides are on somewhat equal footing when going through their WC history. Belgium have great players this generation, but in no way would I class them as a "big" International team. Shush Kaiz. Japan sucks, howay Belgium. Off to buy a case of Belgian beer.

Expected to announce his national team retirement within the next couple of weeks.

Club won't see a massive uptick in shirt sales in Korea, and neither will Sports Direct. Sick and tired of this silly stereotype. You know this for sure like? Well, I can only speak for Korea in specific, but here it goes: Signing local players to raise your profile in an Asian country was a good strategy around the early-to-mid 2000s, when most people were just getting into European Football and didn't really have team preferences. Premier League clubs signing high-profile Asian players instantly raised interest in the PL in those countries, and fans naturally gravitated towards the clubs that had those players. Man United struck gold with Park Ji-Sung, for example. Then time passed and European Football stopped being a new and shiny thing. Almost everyone who would potentially be interested has already tried it out, and out of those, most of the casual fans who just started watching because everyone else did have already moved on. The people who are left now have clubs they've been supporting for 10-15 years. The people who started supporting Man United just because of Park yet stuck around have now lived through a full generation of players past his retirement. They aren't going to be picking up and leaving for NUFC just because we signed Ki. Signing a Korean player is not going to get you a significant uptick in the Korean market unless you are one of the "big clubs" from the early 2000s that already have significant pre-installed fanbases that would be galvanized with a new local signing. That's Man United, Liverpool, Arsenal, and maybe Chelsea at a push. I have never seen a Swansea shirt in Seoul. Ever. I've only seen a Spurs shirt maybe two or three times. Spurs have had two players who dwarf Ki in terms of popularity - YP Lee and Son, and they're also much closer to being a "big club" than we are. I'm sure some people will buy a NUFC Ki shirt (I probably will ) but it will be nowhere near enough to represent a significant increase in club revenue. I'd be surprised if you could even get a NUFC shirt in Korea this year unless you put in some effort looking for it. If you want a real "Park to Man United" level uptick, you're probably going to have to sign some dude from a country that's never had a PL player before (maybe China works, since it's been a while for them.) To summarize: we are not backwards lemmings who know nothing about football that just flock mindlessly from club to club based on newly-signed familiar names. The "average" Asian football fan at this point may have been supporting their club longer than some of the younger local posters on here have. Kindly fuck off with the antiquated "Asian shirt sale" nonsense. PS: also, good luck trying to sell a shirt with a Chinese betting site on it in Korea. The only thing us East Asian countries can ever agree on is that we hate each other forever.

Club won't see a massive uptick in shirt sales in Korea, and neither will Sports Direct. Sick and tired of this silly stereotype.

Definitely has attitude. Always had a reputation as a troublemaker (mostly maturity/anger management stuff), although he seems to have settled down a bit after getting older/married. If I remember correctly there was a big scandal a few years ago because he had a secret Facebook account he used to slag off national team coaching staff.

So not sure anybody cares to know about our new signing to this detail but I've missed talking about football so I'll just keep writing. Ki is a very interesting player from a tactical standpoint because of the odd combination of skills he brings to the table: (1) Above Average ~ Good work rate, stamina, physicality. (2) Very Good ~ Great at hitting connective passes when he's in open space and not under pressure. So there's two ways to use him depending on which skillset you want to leverage. (A) He can be played in a more advanced role where you leverage (1). He'll run from box to box, cause havoc, get into good positions, maybe occasionally score from range or hit a great pass or cross when he's not being marked. There's a little bit of peak NUFC-form Joey Barton in him if you use him like this. (B) He can be played as a deep, roaming playmaker where you'll getting full mileage out of (2), sitting right in front of the defense and moving side to side more than up and down the pitch. This way you're utilizing his passing ability 100%. His best pass by far is drifting off to one side and getting the ball in transition and then hitting it out to a winger in space on the other side, and he'll get to do a lot of that playing this position in a pressing, counter-attacking style. He has great stamina for a deep playmaker type so on defense he can ably fill gaps and mark leaking players even if he's not going to win the ball that often. Personally I think you get a better player if you go for option (B), because you're leveraging his best skill. On the other hand, you basically have to commit to a midfield three where your rear-most midfielder is not very good at winning back possession. This is a more atypical style and honestly he's not good enough of a player (in the PL at least) to build your team around him like this. Option (A) makes him completely plug-and-play. He'll be a decentish squad player where you can just throw him into whatever 4-4-2 CM pairing and forget about it. For the most part, (A) is how he's been used in his best PL seasons. In some cases, managers have gotten lazy and dumped him in as the more defensive-minded CM in a midfield two because he's big and strong and runs around a lot. If you do that he's just not a very good player at all. I feel like Rafa has the ability to line us up in a formation where we keep a good shape and defend even without a dedicated defensive midfielder, so if that's the direction we're going he has the chance to exceed expectations. More realistically though he's a good squad signing that will be fine but unexciting for us starting sometimes and coming off the bench in others.

I think Shelvey is more dynamic in offense, Ki is more physical and covers more ground. For what it’s worth, a lot of Koreans think his best role would be as a deep roaming playmaker or even Libero in a back three. Really need to make sure he’s not under too much pressure from defenders closing down to fully leverage the passing ability. Recall he was decent with Shelvey as a midfield pairing in Swansea.

I think Shelvey is more dynamic in offense, Ki is more physical and covers more ground. For what it’s worth, a lot of Koreans think his best role would be as a deep roaming playmaker or even Libero in a back three. Really need to make sure he’s not under too much pressure from defenders closing down to fully leverage the passing ability.

Should age well too. Never been reliant on athleticism.

Pros - Fantastic passer of the ball over distance. Was already the best long-passer I had ever seen live at age 18. - Not much of a goalscorer but has a great long-distance strike when he has space around the box. - Typical Korean work ethic. Covers lots of distance when he's bothered, uses his big body to push around smaller midfield players. Cons - Despite his passing ability, never really developed the vision and composure required to see the whole pitch and destroy defenses with his passing. I thought he was going to be literal Pirlo when he was younger, but he's not really someone who's going to deliver Cabaye-esque killer passes in the flow of the offense. More somebody who can pick up the ball in his own area and distribute competently to forward players when he has plenty of time and space. - Doesn't really defend at all now despite starting his career as a central defender. Too slow and lumbering (particularly when changing directions) to keep up with most Premiership attacking players. Doesn't like tackling that much unless he's looking to send a message (and get booked in the process). - Sometimes prone to outbursts and disciplinary issues. Not a dirty player per se, but can get out of control at times.

Welcome back. Hope to see you at Chelsea away! Haha, falling out of love with football is something I might get over. Being married now is the slightly more challenging obstacle.

It’s funny that’s this happens after I’ve more or less walked away from football. He’s a youth product of my local club and I’ve seen him play since he was 18. Probably my favorite player at one point but now he mostly represents loads of squandered potential. Decent player, but I thought he was going to be a world beater. The “shirt sales” thing is just a silly stereotype. I’ve never seen anyone wearing a Swansea shirt in Seoul in my life and NUFC is already well known enough in Korea that this isn’t going to affect things either way.

Fuck this twice as devastating as yesterday was.

Come on Poland!! Senegal and Colombia need to tie I guess.

Didn't he get sacked from his club for it? This is somehow a true story. Was that racist twat owner who used to run (still runs?) Perugia.

https://twitter.com/wonjae_twt/status/1012022516607602690 Uh, sorry America, I guess we have new allies now.

Very good The last time the Germans crashed out in the group stages was 1938. In 1939, Hitler invaded Poland.

There are more than one of those videos doing the rounds on Twitter. In Russia, Mexico City, and Los Angeles, all over the place. It's nuts

You’re welcome guys.

It can’t be disappointing when you don’t have expectations