[Soccer TONG] “For Son to serve military or not that is the question.”

SBS Korean’s soccer reporter Jun Lee analyses the new Korean squad for the 2018 Jakarta Asian Game.

Source: Pixabay CC BY Pexels

Son Heung-Min of Korea Republic acknowledges the fans following his team's defeat to Mexico. Source: Getty Images Europe

Whenever we have the World Cup, we unexpectedly realise one thing. That soccer is our life. In soccer, there’s too many drama and stories to call it just a sport. So from today and every second and fourth Wednesday, we will cover various soccer news and the legendary stories in soccer that are often remembered by many of us.

Soccer TONG! TONG in Korean means moving through because everything leads to soccer.  We have Jun Lee today who will prove how the soccer reflects our lives and how our lives reflect soccer. Jun was with us for 2014 Brazil World Cup and 2018 Russian World Cup.

Jun himself strongly believes everything leads to soccer because he is the one who self-learnt the world geography from soccer, and how to distinguish different surnames and nationalities by relating to soccer players with identical names.

Jun also reminds us of a famous story of a legendary soccer player from Côte d'Ivoire named Didier Drogba who has an honorific title as ‘the soccer god that stopped a war’ in Korea.

When Cote d’Ivoire qualified for 2006 German World Cup, the country was suffering from civil war. However, Didier Drogba kneeled down in front of a live camera and said: “Everyone, let’s put down our weapon for at least one week and stop the war”. After his speech, the civil war was miraculously stopped for a week and in the following year, the civil war ended for Cote d’Ivoire.

Stating these facts, it goes without saying that everything leads to soccer

In this episode, Jun deals with the rumours about the appointment of the next coach of the South Korean National Football Team. Some media in Korea reported on Monday that Korean Football Association (KFA) has been contacting Mr Carlos Queiroz, the former coach of the Iranian national team.

Jun also analyses about the new Korean squad for the 2018 Jakarta Asian Game starting from next week. He summarises this Asian game competition by tweaking the famous Shakespeare’s quote. “For Son to serve military or not, that is the question.”

Asian game is U23 tournament where players with age less than 23 can play with the exception of 3 wild card players, who are aged more than 23. As a nation where military service is mandatory, Korea Republic always utilises Wild Cards, and for this tournament, Spur’s Son Heung-Min, Russian World Cup star keeper Cho Hyun-Woo and Gamba Osaka’s forward Hwang Ui-Jo got selected as wild cards.

“If the Korea Republic gets a gold medal from the tournament, Son receives redemption from military service. His contract and his value will depend on whether he can get military service redemption or not’, Jun said.

The full segment is available on the podcast above.

SBS Korean’s soccer reporter Jun hyung Lee Source: SBS Korean Program