Kim Eun-Joong Brought Taejon`s First Victory

The Taejon Citizen and the Pohang Steelers faced each other in the final of the 2001 Seoul Bank FA-Cup National Soccer Championships at Sangam Seoul World Cup stadium yesterday. This tournament is a national festival in which 26 amateur and professional teams participated and have contested for `the king of kings of national soccer` from Oct. 30th.

Taejon earned an exciting 1-0 victory on Kim Eun-Joong`s goal. Kim scored a game-deciding goal by shooting Gong Oh-Kyun`s pass to the net in the 8th minute of the second half.

With this win, the Taejon won the first title in its 5-year franchise history and earned the winner prize of 100 million won as well. Kim Eun-Joong, who scored a goal in four straight games including a goal in this final, became a most valuable player (MVP) to receive a MVP prize of 3 million won.

Before the game, many anticipated that the K-League fifth place Pohang would win over K-League last-place Taejon that has suffered from the severe financial difficulty due to the bankruptcy of the mother company, because the Pohang possessed well-known excellent players such as Kim Byung-Ji, Ha Seok-Joo, Park Tae-Ha, Lee Dong-Gook, Jasenko Sabitovic and Goran Petreski.

However, the Taejon began to take the initiative of the game making several decisive opportunities from the first half. In the 7th minute of the first half, as Jang Cheol-Woo`s centering was bounced by the Pohang`s defender, Kim Young-Keun fired rushing from the front of arch, which was almost a goal although it was blocked by the superb defense of the Pohang`s GK Kim Byung-Ji.

As a starting GK Choi Eun-Sung, who bumped against Pohang`s Park Tae-Ha, injured himself, he was replaced by Lee Seung-Joon. While the Taejon faced the critical moment, the Taejon overcame the moment with compact defense.

The Taejon had to struggle with a series of strong offense of the opponent in the beginning of the second half. But Kim Eun-Joong received a ball that Gong Oh-Kyun passed, and fired a decision goal with a really `sharp` shooting.

As Pohang`s Lee Dong-Gook missed two opportunities for goal in front of the goal gate in the 10th and 19th minutes, and the shooting of Petreski unfortunately hit the goal post, the Pohang had to kneel down.

Sung-Won Joo stt77@donga.com