Seongnam search for new life

This season once looked like a terrible one for Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma but there is hope that there may just be a happy ending. The Gyeonggi club is the most successful in K-League history and when it comes to Asia only Pohang Steelers have won more than Seongnam’s two continental titles. It is truly a storied team.

There has been the occasional season that has been disappointing for fans in the city just south of Seoul but that is relative. In the past, disappointment meant not winning, or perhaps just weakly challenging for the title. The majority of this year however has, so far, been a very difficult one.

In true movie fashion, the initial fall came from the highest point. 2010 ended with Seongnam as champion of Asia. Actually, it didn’t quite end there. That November triumph in Tokyo gave the Yellows entry to the 2010 FIFA Club World Cup and an opportunity to become world champion. That dream was ended by European title-holder Inter Milan but the Korean team finished third.

A few months later, Seongnam was just above the bottom of the K-League with little more than a third of the season remaining, after just three wins from the first 18 games.

The reason for this unprecedented loss of form was simple. The owners of the club were never shy to splash the cash in the past but costs have been cut.That ultimately means players leaving. 

Big-money deals saw Colombian star Mauricio Molina and national team goalkeeper Jung Sung-ryeong depart for FC Seoul and Suwon Bluewings, respectively. The underrated Jeon Kwang-jin left for China, solid defender Cho Byung-kuk went to Japan while striker Dzenan Radoncic missed the first five months of the season through injury.

Just as worryingly, Sasa Ognenovski, the man who lifted the trophy in Tokyo last November and a hero of the fans has also spent much of the season seemingly on the verge of leaving. The 2010 Asian Player of the Year flirted openly with FC Seoul in the summer transfer window.

“I’m obviously disappointed at how this season has panned out,” Ognenovski said at the time. “I did not complain to the club or anything like that, but I do hope I end up with Seoul. Seoul is an ambitious club and I would be playing for the best team in the country if I joined them. They are still in the Asian Champions League ... I’d love to play for Seoul mainly because it is such a big club.”

They say that the ones you love the most also cause the most pain and this was the case for fans whose anger and disappointment were only partially negated by an apology and some subsequent barnstorming performances in the backline by the Australian.

Just when things were looking truly dismal, they started to turn around. Radoncic returned from injury and started scoring. Coach Shin Tae-yong went to South America to pick up two Brazilians, Heverton and Everton Santos, who have performed well.

The team may not have returned to the heights of the past but it has improved considerably from the one that was losing game after game earlier in the season. Just two of the last eight league games have ended in defeat. One came at the home of league leaders Jeonbuk Motors though last weekend’s home loss at the hands of a struggling Gwangju FC was more disappointing. Now it lies in 13th ― still poor, but an improvement.

In some ways, league form is no longer a big issue. It is all about the FA Cup. At the same time as the club was recovering its league form, it was making its way to the final of the country’s premier knockout competition. A semifinal win over Pohang Steelers earned Seongnam an October meeting with Suwon Bluewings.

The winner gives a place in the 2012 Asian Champions League, a competition very close to the heart of all at the club.

“I don’t think the club is keen to let me go, especially with our domestic cup final coming up soon, which is a pathway back in the Asian Champions League,” Ognenovski said. “That’s a huge priority for the club and they want me to be a part of trying to make that happen again.”

If it does, it will help banish memories of a year that wasn’t quite as bad as it once threatened to be.

By John Duerden, Contributing writer 
(johnduerden@hotmail.com)