Korean FA Cup Final 2005

John Duerden reports from Seoul

The Korean FA Cup Final comes around but once a year and there wasn't much more than a mouse stirring in and around Seoul World Cup Stadium in the week before Christmas.

In 2004, the final had taken place on Christmas Day, but perhaps in a bid to attract more fans to the last game of the knockout competition established in 1996, the KFA moved this year's event to December 17.

The organisation wasn't to know it but it was a mistake, as the game took place on what was one of the coldest days of the year, perhaps history.

Arriving at the stadium at one pm to see that the temperature had already peaked at minus eight (not taking the biting wind into account) and was already sliding down into depths that the mind and fingers didn't want to contemplate, it was no surprise that their wasn't much Christmas cheer on display. Even the ice-cool Pim Verbeek said after the game that he was completely frozen.

In cold-induced delusions, memories of childhood appeared and FA Cup finals in England, back to Mays of yore when the sun always seemed to shine and the pitch was as green as could be.

Shuddering back to the present, there was more than one reporter clutching laptop power packs in attempts not to lose any fingers to frostbite. With minimal amounts of flesh on display, it was hard to recognize such scribes in the press box and it was just as hard to recognise a Seoul World Cup Stadium with just over 1,000 people in it.

Those foolhardy people braving the sub-zero temperatures were there to support Chonbuk Hyundai Motors and Ulsan Mipo Dockyard. Chonbuk was going for a hat-trick of FA Cup wins to add to their 2000 and 2003 triumphs.

Just as importantly for the Jeonju-based team, winning the competition would mean a return to the AFC Champions League after being eliminated in the last minute of the 2004 semi-final by Asian powerhouse Al Ittihad.

Since that defeat, the Motors had been slipping down through the gears alarmingly, and endured a tough time in the 2005 K-League season, finishing next to bottom when a challenge for the title had been expected.

As a result, the knockout competition offered some much needed respite from the dismal league campaign and helped by the goals of Milton Rodriguez, simply known as Milton in Korea, the team found itself in a final with K2 outfit Ulsan Mipo Dockyard.

The second tier outfit is a semi-professional one that is becoming more professional by the month. To reinforce the ambition present on the south-east coast was the recent appointment of ex-Pohang Steelers boss Choi Soon-ho. The new hands on the helm of the south-eastern club were guiding a team that had already knocked out four K-League teams.

That quality quartet was made up of holders Busan I'Park, 2001 winners Daejeon Citizen, three time champions Pohang Steelers and in the semi-final, Chunnam Dragons.

The Dragons were well beaten by Mipo, who only managed a mid-table K2 finish last season but have shown that they are more than capable of handling life with the big boys and will get the chance to do so week in and week out from 2007. From next season the team that wins the ten-member K2 division will earn promotion to Asia's oldest professional league.

More immediate however was the chance to become the first team from outside the K-League to lift the FA Cup and not only that, grasp the chance to compete in the 2006 AFC Champions League.

Ulsan even knew which group they would be placed in if they made it to the continental competition, one that contained J-League champs, Gamba Osaka, Chinese title-holders Dalian Shide and Da Nong of Vietnam.

Before thoughts could turn to exotic and warm-sounding overseas climes, Chonbuk had to be negotiated. Dressed in bright yellow shirts, Mipo who share the south-eastern coastal city with K-League champions Ulsan Hyundai Horang-i, took the game to their more illustrious opponents but fell behind in the 13th minute.

Chonbuk were given a free-kick 25 yards out from goal and it was no surprise when Milton stepped to slam the ball into the bottom right corner of the goal.

The game settled down into a quiet affair, one that saw Ulsan push forward in increasing numbers, leaving inevitable gaps at the back that Milton and his compatriot Botti really should have exploited on the occasions that broke through.

Kim Yong-ki had the K2 team's best chance late on but blasted over from inside the box after brushing aside international defender Choi Jin-cheul but it wasn't to be and the second flight must wait until next time to get its hands of the final piece of silverware of the domestic season as well as around US$100,000. Mipo will have to console themselves with half of that amount, which should go someway to funding a promotion campaign next season.

So the domestic action in Korea is over for another year - a year that should be a big one – for obvious reasons.

Season's Greetings and a Happy New Year and thanks for reading!

John Duerden

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