They’re Coming to Seoul: Real Madrid Plays in Seoul Next August

“New Soccer King” Ronaldo, “the magician of the ground” Zinedine Zidane, “handsome star” David Beckham and “the sniper” Raul Gonzalez are coming. Seoul is expecting the stars of world soccer next year.

Soccer web-site www.soccerway.com reported on December 28 that Real Madrid plans to play three matches in Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo from August 5 to 8 of 2004. Angel Sanchez, the marketing chief of Real Madrid said, “In this Asia tour, we will accompany all the star players.” The Real Madrid has a clear plan.

If Real Madrid plays in Seoul, it seems that there will be another soccer boom since the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup as Korean fans can enjoy the fantastic skills of the top soccer players.

With 101 years of history, Real Madrid is the best professional soccer team in the world to which the stars representing each country belong. Real Madrid has top world stars such as Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos from Brazil, Zidane from France, Raul from Spain, Beckham from England and Luis Figo from Portugal.

Real Madrid visited China, Hong Kong, Thailand and Japan for an Asia tour in August. At that time, Real Madrid had four friendly matches against China’s All-Star team, Hong Kong’s selected team and FC Tokyo in Japan league and had complete victories. Only invitational guarantees reached three to four billion won per match, excluding expenses for stay.

An agent company, SM Sports, has been negotiating with Real Madrid for the tour since November.

Soon-Il Kwon stt77@donga.com