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. Beijing 2008 will receive barely a footnote in the annals of South Korean football history. The draw, defeat and win may have been a better record than any other Asian nation managed in China, including the hosts, but it still meant that the team returned home at the end of the first round. Coach Park Sung-hwa is escaping to study in England. The one-time Busan boss is a man with many friends in the upper echelons of the Seoul media but couldn’t escape a good deal of criticism. What made it worse, for football fans at least, was the fact that the baseball team returned across the Yellow Sea with gold and met with a heroes welcome. The 2002 World Cup gave the world the understandable, but misleading, impression that South Korea was a football mad country. It is not. Baseball is more popular. Even before the gold, television ratings are usually around 60% higher for the average baseball match and attendances tend to be higher. Those Olympic events, coupled with the plodding performances of the senior national team, have led certain sections of the media to say that football is in crisis. Again, it is not but the K-League has some work to do to work its way to somewhere near the hearts and minds of the locals. Not in Suwon though – the city is still a strong football bedrock in the Land of the Morning Calm. The Bluewings regularly play in front of 30,000 or more and 2008 has been a season to remember for those followers. They watched their team put together a record-breaking 11 match winning streak that sent them nine points clear at the top. If it wasn’t for the play-off system and the fact that there aren’t really bookies in Korea in the English sense, the bookies would have considered paying out. To say it has all gone wrong is an overstatement. With three-quarters of the regular season over, Suwon are level on points at the top with Seongnam Ilwha Chunma but the aura of invincibility disappeared in July along with the monsoon weather. A 1-0 defeat at the hands of the struggling Daejeon Citizen was a surprise rather than a shock - Daejeon have a good record against the three-time champions - but what followed was a defeat at home by the same scoreline to rivals Seongnam. Suddenly the goals from star strikers Edu, Shin Young-rok and Seo Dong-hyun dried up. Only a last-minute strike against bottom club Busan avoided a shock defeat and while Suwon are still guaranteed a play-off spot, form must improve if a fourth title is on the cards. The news that star summer signing Lee Chun-soo is injured doesn't help. In five games, Suwon have collected just four points. Every team has a blip and as it comes after a run of 33 from 33, it is not a disaster but in the meantime, Seongnam have been on fire. The seven-time champions have won six out of their last seven. Despite the broken rib of star striker Mota, Seongnam have barely broken their stride. Youngster Han Dong-won has chipped in with three goals in the last two games. Seongnam are looking fresh and confident while Suwon are spluttering. Worse for Suwon is the fact that bitter rivals FC Seoul are in good form and not that far behind in third. If that doesn’t get the Bluewings fired up for this weekend’s clash on the southern island of Jeju, nothing will. Copyright: John Duerden & Soccerphile Bet with Bet 365 World Soccer News Soccer betting tips Soccer Books & DVDs Tags Soccer News soccer football J-League K-League Betting

Park Tae-hwan thrilled South Korea on Sunday with his swimming heroics in Beijing but later the same day, Park Sung-hwa was looking less happy than the teenage sensation. For the coach of the Olympic soccer team there is not much consolation to be had after a 3-0 defeat against Italy but at least South Korea is faring no worse than hosts China and better than the already-eliminated Japan at the 2008 Beijing Olympics soccer tournament. After a hard-fought 1-1 draw against Cameroon in the opening match of the group, Korea was hoping for a similar result against the highly-fancied Italians – one which would had left the Taeguk Warriors just needing to defeat outsiders Honduras in the final match to progress to the last eight. Talk in Seoul may have been of the chances of a securing a tie but chat in Rome was of revenge; payback for what happened in the 2002 World Cup when Korea sent the Azzuri home. A group game at the 2008 Beijing Olympics may not have anything like the same glamor and gravitas as a World Cup knockout match but the build up to the game had that big match feeling. It was unfortunate then that the game was almost over within the half hour in the Chinese city of Qinhuangdao. The Europeans took a 2-0 lead that they never really looked in danger of letting slip – if any nation knows how to defend such an advantage it is Italy. ‘Korean tears at the Italian defensive wall’ read one headline in the Seoul media. Now the team is in serious danger of elimination at the first hurdle. Nothing less than a win against Honduras will suffice on Wednesday and the likelihood is that even that will not be enough to book a place in the quarterfinals. Korea needs Italy to defeat Cameroon but as the Europeans have secured their place in the next stage, players are sure to be rested and minds focused elsewhere. For months coach Park, who was unable to select the injured Manchester United star Park Ji-sung for the roster, talked of the importance of concentration and organization in defence but there was little evidence of either on two separate occasions in the first half. From the start, the South Korean backline struggled to cope with the intelligence, movement and talent of the three Italian forwards Sebastian Giovinco, Tommaso Rocchi and opening goalscorer Guiseppe Rossi. After just 15 minutes, Rossi fired home a low shot from just inside the area, squeezing between two defenders. The men in white shirts were slow to react though Rossi, reluctantly sold by Manchester United to Spanish side Villarreal for $15 million (though the English and European champions have an option to buy the 21 year-old back), is the kind of predator and natural finisher that coach Park would love to have. It didn’t need a top-class striker to score Italy’s second. Despite the fact that there were no less than seven white shirts inside the Korean penalty area, Rocchi was given oceans of space and ages of time to receive the ball in a central position, pick his spot and then shoot home. From that point, the game was virtually over. Better attacking teams than Korea would struggle to come back from such a deficit against the Italians and although the men from Seoul tried gainfully - Park Chu-young headed against the crossbar - there was a constant feeling that Italy had an extra gear if it was necessary. It wasn’t but the Azzurrini scored a third in the dying seconds as Korea poured men forward. Now it is a time to regroup and not to dwell on a defeat against an impressive Italian team. Coach Park has to make sure that his players are fully focused on defeating Honduras. It may well be that Cameroon gets the point it needs against Italy but Korea needs to be ready to capitalize on any slip by the Africans. Dreams of medals may not be over for the young team but a place on the podium is looking as murky as a cloudy Beijing afternoon. Copyright: John Duerden & Soccerphile Bet with Bet 365 World Soccer News Soccer betting tips Soccer Books & DVDs Tags Soccer News soccer football J-League K-League Betting