he supposedly had offers from J League & i seriously doubt the offer from Asteras, of which.. it required Jang to have a trial is better. http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2017/07/20/0200000000AEN20170720009200315.html
what's so great about Europa League? he has a better chance of being scouted by KFA & top Euro scouts if he is playing well in J League.
He should have gone to J-league if he got the offer. The state of Greek league doesn't seem to be good. I heard they don't pay wages on time too. But in the positive note, I'm happy he found a team though.
For one, it has bigger exposure than the AFC Champions League. A part of me also thinks that he wants to stay in Europe and is willing to make sacrifices now in order to get picked up by a decent European club in the future. He'll certainly get a lot of Euro TV exposure playing in matches against Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, AEK Athens, or PAOK. Not to mention that the aforementioned clubs have crazy fans and it'll be a good experience for him to play in front of hostile crowds. You can't knock the guy for trying to go the non-traditional route albeit as strange as it might be. Although there's no guarantee of playing time, I'm glad he got picked up by a club.
I think very little of AFC Champions League so yea, I will agree. At the same time, it is such a pointless tournament that KFA or whomever shouldn't even bother paying attention to that tournament (i'm positive EU scouts don't give a F about the tournament). Now, the 2nd bold part is where I think you and I disagree. The path to get picked up by decent Euro club in the future... Anyways, it was his decision & I hope nothing but the best for him in the future.
At the end of the day its his perceived probability to get there, and he might think its either more probable or close enough against other considerations like money. At the end of the day, I think its fairly marginal even if you are right... not like the gap in probability of latching on vs. say Belgium or something. BUT I still wonder if he'd be going there if his agency didn't have some kinda deal going on with Asteras.
fair enough but can't dispute being scouted by KFA for national team is greater in J League over Greek League. btw, who is his agent? i tried to search for his & Paik's agent but couldn't find it (transfermarkt is wrong)..
Jang Gyeol Hee has signed with obligatory shirt pic pic.twitter.com/nb4kYl0xSw— Korean Footballers (@KoreaFootAbroad) July 21, 2017 https://instagram.com/p/BW0IyBlH4Yx/
PSH has a different agency cause he's not listed on their site (who were the ones posting JGH pic) http://lgtfd.net/?page_id=2313 EDIT: I agree on KNT part. But given that he was ignored for U20 WC, KNT might not be his pressing concern.
While I think that it wasn't the best move, I don't think other offers/chances would've been way better. It's a matter of taste I think. The best possible career plan would be to excell at Asteras and join Olympiakos one day, but for that he needs to develop really good.
There is a reason why it's a non-traditional route. Unlike J-League most, apart from Olympiacos, are financially unhealthy and have worse facilities. There's also 0 guarantee that he would even make it in their matchday squad as well. Remember he's a guy who couldn't even get playing time for a U19 team. He needs a club which will develop him patiently, Greece definitely isn't the place to do that.
Joining Olympiakos is a tall order but I agress, that's the best bet if he wants to go to a better league. That or PAOK and maybe AEK Athen.
Does he get his own thread or should we wait until we see him actually play? Or gets called up for KNT?
I doubt that people will be spending that much time deciphering greek which is even hard via google translate.
I mentioned that in my comment. Certainly there's no guarantee that he'll get playing time at either Asteras or a J-League club but it's my guess that he'll have more playing time at Asteras over any J-league club. I don't rate the Superleague that highly at all. Point being is that he made a choice and we should only look forward. If he flops, I'm sure there's some lower Euro/J2/K-league club willing to pick up a Barca youth product. If he succeeds, offers from a better Euro club will be there.
Maybe so. I wasn't suggesting that you rated Greek clubs highly, and you are right what's done is done. I just think if @takeuchi 's source is right, he made this choice just for the sake of staying in Europe whereas in JLeague or KLeague, teams would be more willing to help him transition from having played 0 competitive matches for who knows how long.
speaking of TV exposure, i think J league > Greek League even in Europe... either through DAZN or Eurosport.
Its hard to imagine escaping Greek league without an intermediate step to CL/EL caliber team. If he gets there tho, I think the chances are better. But again, we're talking on margins and I'm amazed/curious as to whether there were offers in more heavily scouted markets.
Some of you guys live in a purely fan "bubble". At the end of the day he's still playing football for a living, what difference does it make how famous he gets or that he plays in a top league. It's all about enjoying your career and making money. When I was playing football at age 12 the entire team was stoked when we were playing tournaments and wanted to win every match. How much glory is there playing in front of basically your parents but you still had fun and took it seriously. Imagine getting paid, if you told me I could retire at age 35ish w/ a healthy retirement/savings I would leave my "glorious" desk job today and start kissing the ground. Again, most professional footballers don't make millions, but if you make $500k for 15 years, get a standard $1,500/month apartment like most 20 year olds, take half away for taxes/food/rent/etc. Take your earnings and put into a safe, boring stock portfolio and make a little interest every year, by the time your retired, live off the savings/interest plus w/e pension-retirement fund the league had. 95% of people would leave their "business" job for that scenario. And those are the so called "failures/disappointments". I know very few footballers think like this so they'll be broke, but I would gladly trade my desk job for the greek league today.
Thats my point. Its that the big greek clubs are a better path than j league. But much harder to discern for smaller Greek clubs.
Even if he plays for one of the big greek club, it is going to require him to play in CL... EL isn't enough. Also, we're talking about a decimated league... doing more to sell players to outside of big EU leagues for money (such as to Turkey, Russia, China, Mexico, and ME). edit - another issue, hardly any movement within the league. the chance for JGH to be purchased by Olympiakos is extremely slim, of which.. imo, it is the only club where the path is better compared to J league (w/ few KNT caps along the way). https://www.transfermarkt.com/super-league/transfers/wettbewerb/GR1/saison_id/2017