Just as anxious Korean mothers head to temples to pray for good test results for their children, football chiefs in South Korea have been doing something similar in the hope that the championship play-off final will be between arch-rivals Suwon Samsung Bluewings and FC Seoul.

It came true on a chilly Sunday afternoon as FC Seoul defeated Ulsan Hyundai Horang-I 4-2 in the penultimate round to set up the 'dream final'. Click to continue reading...

The regular season of the K-League has come to an end; now six teams are standing and dusting themselves down in preparation for the championship play-off series.

Despite a mid-season dip that threatened to go the way of Seoul's KOSPI index and head into a plunge, Suwon Samsung Bluewings bounced back to finish in first – just. Click to continue reading...

With winter on the horizon, the big games are coming thick and fast as the end of the regular K-League season also comes into view. It is a time when some teams are going all out in an attempt to grab what is on offer while others are more concerned with protecting what they have.

For the first time since April 2007, FC Seoul is the team with the most. Click to continue reading...

"Seongnam are the second strongest team in the league but we are the strongest," said Pohang Steelers boss Sergio Farias after his team defeated the K-League leaders 2-1 last Saturday. The Brazilian is exaggerating his team's abilities but at the moment in Korea, just as the weather finally settles into seasonable temperatures, the football scene has gone haywire. Click to continue reading...

It has been a strange K-League season. The constant stopping and starting has robbed the competition of any momentum. A series of World Cup qualifiers in May and June necessitated a break of a month and by the time play started again in July, the Olympic torch was lit in Beijing and tools were downed once more. Click to continue reading...

Film fans of a certain age will always see the three Star Wars movies made in the seventies and eighties as the definitive trilogy and not the one which kicked off in 1999 with ‘The Phantom Menace.' There can be little debate about that.

Not so about South Korean star Lee Chun-soo who has been more of a phantom than a menace over the past year. Click to continue reading...

As the K-League reaches the halfway stage, there is one team that looks like 100% champions, one that is setting the bar higher every week. It is a statistic that improves by the week but has become so familiar that it almost ceases to impress. Suwon Samsung Bluewings have won the last eleven league matches. Click to continue reading...

The 2008 season so far has been all about Suwon Samsung Bluewings. The Gyeonggi giants started well and haven't looked back. If they were to take a peek over their shoulders after eight games, they would see a chasing pack that was getting ever smaller.

Seven wins and one draw from eight games tell its own story. Click to continue reading...

"This is like deja vu all over again", said baseball legend Yogi Berra once upon a time. A quick glance at the top of the current K-league table certainly brings a host of memories flooding back for football fans around the nation.

Suwon Samsung Bluewings are in first place after winning four and drawing one of the five games so far. Click to continue reading...

Sunday sees the biggest regular fixture of the season – the meeting between FC Seoul and Suwon Samsung Bluewings – and if any extra spice was needed then the fact that the two teams occupy the top two spots in the K-League is more than enough.

The corresponding 2007 match at Seoul World Cup Stadium, almost exactly a year ago, saw the K-league record attendance smashed as 55,000 people saw the Bluewings win 1-0 – a new record could be set this Sunday. Click to continue reading...

1. Suwon Samsung Bluewings (last season 2)
Solid Suwon will be there or thereabouts. The defence is not getting any younger but still contains Lee Woon-jae in goal and the inspirational Mato Neretjlak at centre-back. The midfield boasts Lee Kwan-woo and Baek Ji-hoon but no longer South Korea captain Kim Nam-il. Click to continue reading...

The system has its critics but the play-offs gave the K-League regular season a final day to remember. Six teams out of 14 doing battle in the championship deciders may be a high percentage but without the games, we would have just been treated to the sight of Seongnam strolling to another title.

It is partly Seongnam's fault that the system was reinstalled. Click to continue reading...

Ahn Jung-hwan was labelled "Asia's Beckham" after the 2002 World Cup, a handsome star who made global headlines for dumping Italy out of the competition. Five years later, he almost became the Asian version of one of Beckham's former Manchester United team-mates,Eric Cantona.

Cantona famously jump-kicked a fan in the chest in 1995 before raining punches on the shocked leather-jacketed spectator. Click to continue reading...

Things change quickly in football and the K-League is no exception. August 8 saw the first day of action after the mid-summer break. It also witnessed champions Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma defeat Jeju United 2-0 to stretch their unbeaten league run to 22 games.

On the same evening, closest challengers Suwon Samsung Bluewings crashed to a surprise home defeat at the hands of Asian Champions Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors to leave Seongnam a massive nine points clear at the top. Click to continue reading...

With South Korea preparing to celebrate independence from Japan on August 15, it is, perhaps, a little ironic that the K-League relies upon foreign players for a sizeable percentage of its goals.

It has been well-documented that South Korea scored a measly three times in six Asian Cup games last month. Departing coach Pim Verbeek blamed the goal drought partly on the scarcity of Koreans scoring goals domestically. Click to continue reading...