The Jeonnam Dragons received the worst report card in the 2022 season, ‘K League 2 bottom’. He challenged the Asian Football Federation Champions League (ACL) by winning the Football Association (FA) Cup in the 2021 season, 메이저놀이터 but was eliminated from the group stage and adversely affected the league. Former head coach Jeon Jeon Jun left the team in June of last year due to poor performance, and coach Lee Gwan-in, who led Yongin University, took the new helm.
It was not enough time to color director Lee. He shouted hot ‘furnace football’, but it wasn’t easy. Coach Lee, who met at the 2023 K-League Winter Field Training Media Camp held at the Lakhi Hotel in Gwangyang-si, Jeollanam-do, said,
“Last season, it was not easy to join in the middle and put on my color. got a lot He has bruises on the outside and inside,” he laughs, “I had time to prepare this year. There are players who went to the army, but others kept. The most important foreign players were also brought in well. It would be nice to have expectations for hot football.”
Last month, the first field training was held in Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do. This month, the clubhouse in Gwangyang is working on a more meticulous part. Coach Lee said, “I didn’t go abroad for his 1st battery training, but I spent time focusing on the game in Changwon to raise my sense of practice. In this training, I focused on what was a problem and what I needed to bring with me in more detail. For now, I focused on the first match against FC Anyang.”
Jeonnam’s biggest problem last season was their ability to score goals. There was no player to decide a room. He scored 47 goals in 40 games, and the top scorers in the team were Balotelli and Park In-hyeok, who scored 7 goals. Director Lee also nodded. He said, “The most important part was scoring. Striker reinforced. It’s not a satisfactory reinforcement, but now we have to wear it in our style.” When asked about the expected player, he mentioned “Simovich” without hesitation.
Simovic is from Sweden and has a height of 201 cm. Starting in Sweden in 2011, he went through leagues in Norway, Japan and Italy, scoring 107 goals and 29 assists in 289 professional games. In 2016, he had a successful Asian stage experience with 43 goals and 16 assists in 122 matches in four seasons in the Japanese J-League Nagoya Grampus and Omiya Ardija (2018-2019). Director Lee said, “There are things I look forward to because I don’t know perfectly yet, but I have high expectations for his career. It’s time to build your body. I hope that this player will fill in the part where I couldn’t save a chance to score last year.”
The goal is, of course, promotion. Jeonnam has been in the second division for four seasons after direct relegation at the bottom of the K-League 1 in the 2018 season. Director Lee said, “I see Busan, Gimcheon, Seongnam, and Gyeongnam, who have experienced the first division, including us, as teams with a high possibility of promotion. I think we will have a situation where we can compete sufficiently if we take 24 points in one round against the remaining 8 teams and reach 72 by the third round.”
kkang@sportsseoul.com