I'm going to trust that one Cardiff guy who came to congratulate us after the Japan match and talked about Cardiff and KBK's prospect's there (almost all of us repped that guy iirc)
In terms of development though, one does get concerned about matches degrading into rugby ball, though KSY did benefit in some ways.
All he needs to do is play well and stay injured-free and doors will open. He'll get noticed quickly in the Championship and obviously his goal is to play for an EPL team. I doubt he'd get noticed as quickly in Germany or in a poor-performing EPL side like Norwich or West Brom, but I could very well be wrong.
IIRC generally newly promoted clubs tend to pick up reinforcements from clubs who missed out on promotion. (eg. SKH @ Wolverhampton getting signed by Coppel @ Reading circa 2006) If KBK performs and Cardiff are promoted, fantastic. If KBK performs and Cardiff aren't, another club will most likely call for him. I'm hoping Bolton/Cardiff gain automatic promotion this year, with KBK/LCY playing key roles. We might even see in the near future an influx of Korean footballers into the Championship/Premiership by lower-table clubs wanting to find their own promotion boosters.
TBH going from Championship to PL is not a bad route.. you get playing time and establish yourself as a starter. That being said, Cardiff and Bolton (if LCY stays) better get promoted this year..
On the one hand, learning to handle rugby ball. On the other hand, being stuck on a team PLAYING rugby ball.
But not better than Dortmund. If Celtic was in the Championship, Cardiff would get promoted before them.
I think malky will play him on the left wing. I think our centre midfield will be gunnarsson, mutch and whittingham with kim on the left and bellamy on the right. The three in the middle were exceptional against newcastle last saturday and we were 3-0 up after 27minutes. Gunnarsson and mutch were then taken off half time as they havent played a lot so far this season. Judging by saturdays performance, i dont think kim will be an out an out left winger, but i think he will be asked to play quite narrow and will be interchanging a lot with the other midfielders. i think malky is attempting to play with a fluid midfield that are all comfortable in every role. If any man will give us pure width i think it will be bellamy.
I think malky will play him on the left wing. I think our centre midfield will be gunnarsson, mutch and whittingham with kim on the left and bellamy on the right. The three in the middle were exceptional against newcastle last saturday and we were 3-0 up after 27minutes. Gunnarsson and mutch were then taken off half time as they havent played a lot so far this season. Judging by saturdays performance, i dont think kim will be an out an out left winger, but i think he will be asked to play quite narrow and will be interchanging a lot with the other midfielders. i think malky is attempting to play with a fluid midfield that are all comfortable in every role. If any man will give us pure width i think it will be bellamy.
I was dead set against this move at first but Cardiff has grown on me. I like Malky Mackay and the team looks like it has real ambition ... if Cardiff fails to get that promotion it would be disastrous, but I feel pretty confident that this is the year they finally get it done. If there's one thing I learned over the years watching Korean players playing in Europe, it's that patience pays off. Our players need to put in work for teams that need them. KBK frankly underperformed at these Olympics and some are already deeply disappointed in him and cynical about his future, but I still think that he's a sure thing. KBK's performance at the Olympics showed me that he probably won't make an immediate impact against top competition. Judging from how he worked his way up in the J-League from bottom to top, I think moving to Cardiff could turn out to be a good choice. We were all pissed years ago when he was playing in J2, but it eventually worked out for him. This dude is a classic slow starter and he isn't exactly the type of guy who is brimming with confidence. There's no need to gamble at a place where there are doubters, and KBK knows it. He now has plenty of time to acclimatize himself in Europe. Thank God for that bronze medal.
Cheers man, Ive been waiting for some real news or info before posting in this thread. As I said in the Bronze medal thread I will try and post how KBK plays and hows he's viewed by the Cardiff fans as much as I can. I have a season ticket so every home game I will try and post about him At the moment I believe we are waiting for International clearance until we actually sign KBK but that will be a formality. The club is sending a club representative to go over to Korea and sort out everything with KBK and then travel with him back to the UK. As for where he will play... As @ thehumblegringo has said our center midfield will pretty much be Whittingham, Gunnarsson and Mutch but I feel that Bellamy will play on the left and KBK on the right as they both like to cut infield on to their stronger feet. He may even play a free role or swap wings with Bellamy as during the match with Japan he was constantly moving infield and/or switching wings. The standard of Championship football is really good, I've heard it's the 4th highest supported league in Europe. There are only a few teams (Leeds for example) who are dirty teams and there are quite a lot of teams Cardiff included who play decent free-flowing football. When KBK gets the games under his belt i'm sure the confidence will improve, Cardiff has a fantastic young manager who will really get the best out of all the players playing and KBK will improve because of how Malky manages him. I'm also disappointed with how PJW has had his medal withheld from him at the moment, damn IOC! Congrats again on the Bronze and finishing 5th in the final Olympics medal table! If you have any questions about Cardiff or anything send me a PM
i, for one, am very cynical about KBK's future. i think he was overhyped on these forums based off of his j-league highlights and members talking him up. he had maybe two good performances for the KNT. he did nothing for me in london. i wanted to think it was nerves at first but seeing how other relative unknowns like HSH, YSY, KCS played outstanding throughout the touney, i can't really give him the benefit of the doubt. his touches were usually off and his play isn't suited for physicality at all. i'm not sure how he'll hold up in the championship.
there were similar concerns with LCY and KSY before they moved to europe. They adapted and got stronger. KBK will have to adapt as well.
As I have only seen KBK play live once I can only speak of what I've seen from him during the Olympic games, I thought he did OK against Japan. He was sort of in and out of play, sometimes playing some fantastic passes and had brilliant touches and other times missing simple passes and getting himself into trouble. But I think I will put this down to nerves/ being a bit unsettled due to the transfer? I still thought he played well enough though. There have been plenty of players int the Championship who aren't suited to the physical side of things and have gone on to be the best players in the league, as long has he settles I'm fairly confident he will be fine, Cardiff has a set up where all players play for each other and if he's struggling one of the other team members will help him out.
Talent level wise -he's somewhere between Lee Chung Yong's astronomical talent level and Park Ji Sung's talent. He's left footed, has better shooting than PJS and has PJS's body build as of now (rather than PJS 10 years ago). He dribbles better than PJS too. He just lacks PJS's pure determination and grit. He should be fine imo. Let him settle. [PS - European/Ligue1 experience vs J-League experience was noticeable when comparing Kim Bo Kyung's Olympics vs. Nam Tae Hee's Olympics...]
I thought physically he held up fine even if his technical skills under pressure let him down some. I'd rather wait and see how he learns to combine the two. The olympics was a whole new level for him... the fact that he didn't excel right away after such a big leap from j league isn't surprising.
He reminds me a bit of SHM in the respect that you can see, at times, the brilliance and all the upside potential that gets fans excited. Other times he tends to disappear. The talent is there but he'll have to work on consistency to realize it.
KBK was off form throughout the Olympics. But don't forget what he looks like when he's in form. Almost exactly last year, when we had to go through that disaster in Sapparo, it was KBK who was the only one who left that pitch without his head hanging in disgrace.
When a player disappears in a match, is it his fault or the game plan's? I can't help but feel that perhaps KBK was sort of on the periphery of HMB's tactics, maybe? The game seemed to run mainly through players like KJC, KSY, PCY, KCS, and YSY. Perhaps KBK is still in a situation where his role on the NT is being figured out.
Having watched all south korea's games with added interest die to us signing kim, i must say that i have to agree with this. You didn't seem to lack ability but from a neutral point of view you did seem to lack a bit of ambition going forward. many times i thought your players had options agead of them but rather chose the safe option and went backwards. Sometimes i was screaming at kim to have a bit more confidence but he would be happy to be the bridesmaid rather than the bride so to speak. This is not a criticism of South Korea or Kim but just an observation as an outsider.
Hence why we all were underwhelmed (some more so than that) with Kim's performance during the Olympics. Kim was playing inverted to create more scoring chances for himself, but he kept uncharacteristically losing the ball with his 1st or 2nd touch in many of the matches... We also were playing with strikers in terrible form after the club seasons that they had, so it would have been nice for KBK to have stepped up like he did in the WCQs to ease the scoring burden on the strikers. Instead, he took a bit of the passenger seat approach to the tournament...