Teams’ Popularity Is Decided by the Existence of National Team Players

“We are worrying because our team doesn’t have any national team members who played in the 2002 World Cup.” “We couldn’t attract those enthusiastic soccer fans following national team players,” an official at Sungnam Ilhwa jokingly said during the game between Sungnam Ilhwa and Bucheon SK held at Sungnam Satadium on July 17.

Even if you didn’t hear saying like this from soccer club officials, it seems clear that the popularity of a club is not related to the team’s ranking at the Korean League. Rather, it is decided by whether the team has the 2002 national team players.

Kim Nam-il of Cheonnam Dragons is still recovering from the injury of the world cup and has sat out games, but his popularity is the highest, dragging up the popularity of the club, which ranks 7th at the Korean League. Busan Icons is also only remaining in the 8th place, but soccer fans are paying a lot of interest to the team because of Song Jong-guk, who was nicknamed “the prince of the Hiddink team.” In Cheonbuk Hyndae, one of the leading teams, Kim Do-hoon was a star player, but just after the World Cup, defender Choi Jin-chul emergerd as a star player of the club.

Fortunately, the World Cup fever is expected to continue to the Korean League. Even though national team players do not play, young players like Kim Eun-joong and Lee Dong-ook are doing well and foreign players show active plays, increasing the interest of soccer games.

On july 17, about 24000 people visited Sungnam Stadium. Sungnam Ilhwa and Bucheon SK showed a neck and neck game, entertaining the spectators. In that the match attracted a lot of people and the play was good, the official of Sungnam Ilhwa did not have to worry whether the game will draw frantic soccer fans. However, still the team worries that most of the soccer fans pay interest to World Cup national team members. The team envied clubs that have the national team players. Teams have anxiety that the soccer fever might cool down.

To get rid of this concern, professional soccer players should show vigorous and great plays. However, what should be done first is the increase of fans who come to the stadium to watch games, not a few star players.

Even in 1998, the pro soccer enjoyed high popularity, and at that time, at the center of the popularity was Ko Chong-soo of Suwon Samsung. On 17th, he returned to the field in Pohang after the rest of 11 months. He said, “Fans seem to root for certain players.” His saying sounds significant because he himself experienced ups and downs of the professional soccer for a short period of time.

Sung-Won Joo swon@donga.com