Ulsan Hyundai, the leader of the K League 1, has lost its upward curve as the rainy season passes. Since last season, coach Hong Myung-bo, who leads Ulsan, has suffered his first consecutive loss since taking office.
Ulsan lost 1-3 in an away match against Suwon Samsung in the 23rd round of the Hana One Q K League 1 at Suwon World Cup Stadium on the 15th. Ulsan, which gave up the first goal to Suwon Jeon Jin-woo in the 39th minute of the first half, rarely opened the opponent’s goal and eventually collapsed by giving up additional goals to Mulic and Kim Joo-chan at the end of the second half. It was too late to overturn in the second half of the extra time that Baco’s chase goal was scored.
Ulsan fell into a losing streak for the first time in about two years and nine months since October 2020 following the match against Incheon 메이저놀이터순위 United (1-2 loss) on the 12th. It is also the first consecutive loss to coach Hong Myung-bo, who has led Ulsan since December of that year.
Ulsan’s lead, Mercury, is not yet a crisis. Ulsan, which maintains its No. 1 spot with 53 points, is still in a position to challenge the most points in the K League 1 season, surpassing Jeonbuk Hyundai’s 86 points (26 wins, 8 draws and 4 losses) in 2018 since the promotion system was introduced in 2013.
However, there is also a sense of crisis in that all of the consecutive losses recorded by the players during the hot weather, which is a physically difficult time, were suffered by the lower-ranked teams. Head coach Hong expressed his concern that “the overall atmosphere is not the same as before.” It was a reference to a situation in which the entire team had to suffer from criticism as it was revealed that several players of its team talked about racial discrimination on social networking services (SNS) last month. The problem was noisy due to external problems, with the players being disciplined by the Professional Football Federation. In the quarterfinals of the Korea Football Association (FA) at the end of last month, he lost to Jeju United after a penalty shoot-out, and the opportunity to “double (win the regular league + cup tournament)” was also canceled.
Ulsan seemed to be successful in reversing the atmosphere by beating the Pohang Steelers, the “East Coast Derby,” 1-0 on the 7th, but fell into two consecutive losses after being caught by Incheon, which was its third six-game winning challenge of the season. In particular, the Suwon match (15 points) was a very painful defeat. The first game in three days gave some key players a breakHowever, Suwon, the “last place,” has not been so good that it has not won nine consecutive games (4 draws and 5 losses), including three consecutive losses.
It is a more regrettable trend in that it is time for Ulsan’s thick squad to exert more power in midsummer, when the physical burden and risk of injury on the team increases. Coach Hong, who carefully aimed at winning two consecutive K-League 1 games, said, “I will calmly think about winning every game rather than being greedy,” raises the tension of the team again. Ahead of the two-week break, he will face Jeju again, which lost the FA Cup on the 21st. After the defeat against Suwon, he predicted a tactical change, saying, “The opponent counterattacks in the same pattern.”