Ji Dong-Won @ Sunderland A.F.C./Augsburg 2012-2013 [R]

Couple of Spurs fans got stabbed in Rome pretty recently though though.

 

http://sports.news.naver.com/sports...&mod=read&office_id=382&article_id=0000081273

might go back to chunnam

 

Ji would make an awesome false nine...who needs a false nine?!

 

Great.

 

He's better off going back than staying at Sunderland.

 

I had a friend who worked in Italy and he said he never went to football games.

Way too many shady/crazy people there.

Have you seen clips of Italian fans? Most of them are unemployed young men and all they have is the football club. Not a good mix.

 

Lazio are a bunch of nazis

 

How do they afford tickets to the matches?

 

lie, cheat n steal

 

Despite being unemployed they have considerable power with their respective clubs. The club basically lets them attend for free.

Lazio - Irriducibli (spelling? w/e..) is a good example

 

Ji going back to k-league is more beneficial than negative. At least in Korea, not only will he get playing time but he has a chance to remake himself into a different style player which might have been tougher to do in Europe. Only downside is that he might never able to go back to Europe if he doesn't make an impression in Korea. I see him as a 8-12 goal scorer in Korea but he needs to reinvent himself.

 

and they still cannot fill the stands..?

 

but the scouts will also consider the competition quality of the league, no?

 

I have said this others. How bad do you think the K-League is? It's arguably the best league in Asia and leagues like SPL (minus Celtic), Swedish, Swiss, etc. aren't significantly better.

Not to mention Ji was recruited out of Chunnam to begin with (even though his performance in the Asian Cup sealed it for him. But he was scoring goals against the likes of India).

 

The fact of the matter is that there are few European scouts watching k-league relative to its quality. They have a hard enough time scouting neighboring leagues.

 

You know that as well most in this forum....and well, i'll refer to Skimm's remark above.

 

Not to mention that J League attracts way more scouts than the K League...
But still, if a player is talented enough or shines at a major tournament, scouts will notice

 

He deserves better than this. I don't see why he wouldn't get picked up by at least a low-level team in one of the top tier leagues. Who goes back to K-League and then back to Europe again? Unacceptable imo

 

I don't know if that really is the case. It's just possible there are not many talent worth inquiring about for European teams. I mean Lyon were scouting YBGR very recently and while Lyon might be a French powerhouse, they certainly aren't a top budget club (comparing to a lot of the other European clubs, at least from what I know of them).

edit: i was wrong, they certainly have enough money.

Point well taken. If Ji can go to Augsburg, I rather see him there but I don't think going back to the K-League isn't necessarily end of his European career. It hasn't been done before but we also have to realize the sample size and how Koreans going to Europe is still relatively new trend (you can give me Cha, Huh, Seo JW, etc. but that was once in awhile type of stuff).

edit: actually, Lee Chun Soo and Lee Dong Guk did that. Lee went to Spain, back to Korea, then Holland wile LDG did it with Germany and England. And Ji can be a better player than LDG but I still want to see Ji becoming more of a target man.

 

Actually, I disagree. I don't think he deserves better than this. Sunderland isn't a good fit for him now and they were not when he was snatched up a couple seasons back. Ji chose the glory of the Premiership over improving his own game at PSV. I have very little sympathy to offer to those who pick situations detrimental to their own improvement and don't succeed. Ji does have a couple things going for him though. He is only 21 and has a military exemption in hand to boot. I hope Augsburg swoops for him and they turn things around, but MoN looks to want to milk Ji for every penny he is worth...

 

Monaco's commented on the lack of scouts at the afc u19 tourney. I think Japan only has more transfers because of a broker... most of those german clubs do not have active scouts out there.

As for YBGR, I do get the impression that korean corporations try to influence transfers.

I'm not saying that there aren't scouts but there is a lot of randomness and luck in K league scouting it seems.

 

That's a little harsh for someone who had to make a big decision so young and with so many people offering him "advice." Also, I meant that he deserved more solely based on the merit of his play. He comes up big at the right times and he's obviously motivated and eager to improve his craft.

Whatever happens I hope he finds the right coach to hone his skills so that he can become a key player for the National Team. I'm tipping him to prove the detractors wrong.

 

I know it seems really harsh to say this in hindsight. But it really isn't that harsh considering I've been hoping Ji would go to PSV from the beginning. That said, what merit is there in performing well in a regional championship like the Asian Cup? The Euro's is one thing, but we were scoring big against the likes of India. At least in the cases of KSY and LCY, they had WC10 to prove themselves.

I'm really hoping that Ji gets better at picking his situations. Sunderland not only wasn't the right style fit for him, but neither Steve Bruce nor Martin O'Neill have been the right manager for him. Personally, I think he is overrated, but I haven't seen the best of what he has to offer yet. Until then, the jury is out and I'd love nothing more to be proven wrong.

 

JDW is trying not to return back to Korea

 

Good. Is the Augsburg deal of?