Football Season Guide

Seongnam had by far the weakest attack in the top flight in 2019, just 30 goals scored in 38 rounds, but still ninth place and 12-point lead over the bottom 2 were achieved. This was all thanks to the solid defending with Seongnam having the fourth best defensive record in the division. After the end of last season managerial change took place with inexperienced Nam-il Kim given his first job as Head Coach by Seongnam. The new boss had extra months to build his squad and get his message through to the players, but many worry that the forward actions will be even poorer in 2020 with Brazilians Eder and Mathias leaving the team. The former was the only member of the 2019 squad to score more than 3 goals! Also regular centre-back Chae-min Im and starting left-back Won-jae Park departed. Former was well replaced by the arrival of Jovanovic from Greece, while newcomer Su-il Park and veteran Tae-min Park will compete for starting role at left-back. Coach Kim is likely to favour 4-2-3-1 shape with loaned in striker Kis and 34-year-old forward Dong-hyeong Yang expected to carry the main burden of the attack. The other hope for improved forward actions lies in the signing of playmaker Iskandarov, but he seems to lack the technical abilities and vision required to be key figure in the number ten role. Instead captain Bo-min Seo is likely to carry the burden of creating chances again. He was directly involved in exactly 40% of his team’s goals in 2019. Inner midfielder Tae-jun Park could see plenty of starts due to his age and the requirement to have at least 1 player U22 in the starting XI. He made 7 of his 8 starts last season late in the year and is obviously seen as the most talented youngster in the squad right now.