Seol Rises in Premier League Ranking

Seol Ki-hyun (27. Reading FC) is now on the upward spiral. Soccer fans here even say that they live to watch Seol play.

Seol, who scored his second goal for this season in a match against West Ham on October 1 in the English Premier league, ranked 13th with 123 points in the Actim Stats, a Premier league player ranking system that was released yesterday. This was six notches up from a week earlier. Seol, who was ranked 68th on September 12, is about to become a first Korean Premier leaguer to break into top 10 riding the upward spiral, rising 55 place in the ranking in just three weeks. Seol came in 13th but recorded the same score with his teammate Kevin Doyle and an Australian midfielder Timothy Cahill (Everton), effectively tying him with them at 11th place.

Seol, currently playing as a right-wing midfielder on Reading, is strengthening his standing even from his first year in Premier league, placing 5th in midfielder ranking.

In particular, Seol’s second goal he scored in a game with West Ham was nominated for the goal of the week by the Premier league.

Seol has so far scored two goals in just seven Premier league games. Seol, who returned to Korea on October 3 for the tryout match against Ghana (October 8) and preliminary match in the 2007 Asian Cup with Syria (October 11), said, “I now feel confident even with the game against Chelsea, the strongest.”

Experts cited Seol’s confidence as a reason for his excellent performance. They say that Seol’s extensive experience in the England Championship (second division), starting with Belgian Jupiler league in July 2000, sideline of the European league, now shines.

In fact, Seol also had good luck. Seol didn’t do well on both his professional team Wolverhampton last year, due to injury, and national soccer team. Seol even considered returning to a Korean team but could become a big leaguer, thanks to Stephen Coppell, a coach of Reading FC that first made its way to Premier league this year. Coach Coppell selected Seol, keeping an eye on him always played hard in the Championship league.

MBC commentator Seo Hyung-wook speaks of him, “Seol could excel on his team because the team has few star players and so players respect and trust one another on the team.” For this reason, Seo analyzed that Seol was able to be a key player relatively more easily than Park Ji-sung (25) who secured key position hard way on his team where world-class players abound.

However, experts agree that Seol wouldn’t be where he is now, had it not been for his relentless efforts to play in a big league on the fringe of European league.

yjongk@donga.com