FC Seoul vs. Seongnam Preview and Prediction
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It has been a long time since FC Seoul has
played a home game on the WEEKEND. The last time they played at home on the
weekend was against Jeju on the halcyon date of April 4th, and they came away winners. Since then, their league form has not been
great. They beat Daejon one-nil, but
lost to Suwon 5-1, and drew against both Incheon and Gwangju one-all. Maybe home is where the heart is and this is
the week that they will break out, score goals, and begin to climb the table.
As I stated last week, this is an important
match for both teams (cliché), but especially Seoul. Yet again, they have gotten off to a horrific
start this season and currently languish at the wrong end of the table in 9th
place. Seongnam sit in 7th place, two
points ahead of Seoul, which makes this a proverbial six pointer. If Seoul wins, they leap over Seongnam in the
table at the very least.
Looking at the form for both teams, neither
team is lighting it up. Seongnam have won
two, lost two, and drew four. Since
losing to Suwon in week three, they have not lost in the last five games. However,
their last three games have been draws and Seongnam has only scored once in
those three games, against Jeju on a penalty by Kim Do Heon. In fact, Seongnam have had quite a bit of
difficulty scoring goals this year. They
have scored seven in eight games, but four of those were against Daejon. If you take away the Daejon game, then they
have only scored three goals against in seven, which is quite an anemic rate of
return for any attack.
Seongnam’s defense, on the other hand, has
been quite stingy. They have only surrendered
seven goals this year and three of those were against Suwon in week three. If you take away the Suwon game, they have
only given up four goals in seven games this year.
If Seoul had such defensive solidity, they
would be much higher in the table. They have
scored in all of their games but the first one they played. Unfortunately, they have only scored one goal
in each of those games.
Defensively, Seoul has been miserable. They have kept only one clean sheet (against
Jeju), and have given up more than one goal in four games of the eight
games. They have defended naively,
giving up horrible goals in all sorts of manner.
Therefore, based on a look at these
statistics, I do not expect this game to be a thriller. Like last year’s games, I expect this one to
be a turgid affair with goals extremely difficult to come by. I think Seoul will win on a goal in the final
ten minutes. Yun Il Lok has yet to score this year. Hopefully he will break that this game.
Prediction:
Seoul 1: 0 Seongnam
Seongnam
Player to Watch:
Kim Do Heon transferred from Suwon to Seongnam this year. He was given the nickname “Asian Paul Scholes”
and once played in the English Premier League for Westbrom Albion. He has scored four of Seongnam’s seven
goals.
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