FC Seoul vs. Seongnam Preview and Prediction

Congratulations to the K League's Wigan.

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.