Lee Seung-woo: Player should be maverick to amuse fans

Lee Seung-woo (aged 24), playing for Suwon Football Club in K-League 1, the men's top professional football division of the Korean football league system, is making headlines this season. He is catching attention wherever he goes, on the field scoring goals and making goal celebration and even at press conferences. He is ranked fifth for scoring goals this season at K-League 1, playing in 22 matches and scoring 10 goals. His team is ranked at sixth.

In a recent interview held in Seoul, Lee said he thought the good atmosphere of the team led to better performances of both the team and himself as an individual player. He added that even though many think of him as free-spirited he does have boundaries and that a player should be a maverick to amuse fans.

Concerns exceeded expectations when Lee joined Suwon FC in December 2021 as he had rather turbulent football career. He was a up-and-coming young player when he joined the famous La Masia, Barcelona's youth academy in 2011.

The peak of his career was when Lee joined Korea's under-16 team for the 2014 AFC U-16 Championship held in Thailand. Lee scored goals for four consecutive matches (five goals and four assists), leading the team to the finals. At the quarter-finals with Japan, he left a memorable scene for both international and local audiences where he dribbled for over 50m, broke through three defenses and scored his second goal.

In 2017, Lee successfully landed as a key player on an Italian club Hellas Verona for his senior debut. Since 2019, however, when he was transferred to Sint-Truiden in Belgium, he was absent in most of the matches and showed highly disappointing performances. Lee said that his time in the Belgian League was hard and that there was nothing he could do and he felt sorry for himself.

Lee's performances in K-League 1 are drawing much attention from overseas as well. An Italian media outlet recently said that Lee had never parted with football even after he left Europe. On his outstanding performances this season, Lee said that the performances in football can never be improved overnight and that his improvement is also a result of his constant and hard work. He added that one of his key plans this season is finishing it without injuries, scoring more goals and assists for the team and eventually leading the team to the AFC Championship.


hun@donga.com