It has already been five seasons since center back Kim Young-kwon (33, Ulsan Hyundai) left China, where he had his heyday in the mid-2010s. However, his local status as a soccer player is inexorable.
On September 12, ‘Zboba’ said, “If Kim Young-kwon had not come to the Chinese Super League, he would have played as a starter in a mid-tier team in the top five European leagues. “He is a defender who has shown the ability to do so,” he claimed.
‘Zboba’ is a creator with 2.967 million subscribers. It provides sports content to Chinese portal sites such as ‘Sina.com’ and ‘Wangyi (English name NetEase)’.메이저놀이터
The five major European soccer leagues based on market size are ▲English Premier League (EPL) ▲Spanish La Liga ▲Italian Serie A ▲German Bundesliga ▲French Ligue 1.
Kim Young-kwon shines in ▲2013-2016 Chinese Super League Best 11 ▲2015 East Asian Football Confederation (EAFF) E-1 Championship Best Defender ▲2015 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League Dream Team ▲2020 Japan J1 League Fan Voted Team of the Year .
‘Zboba’ also highly praised Kim Young-kwon for honestly admitting his mistakes and making up for them with his performance during the final qualifying round of the 2018 FIFA Russia World Cup, when he was at the center of controversy.
After a 0-0 home draw with Iran, in which he wore the captain’s armband and played full-time as a center back, Kim Young-kwon received strong criticism for his slip of the tongue, saying, “The noise of the crowd was so loud that it was very difficult to communicate in the stadium, so I couldn’t properly perform what I had practiced.”
However, Kim Young-kwon started as a starter in all three group stage games of the round of 32 of the Russian World Cup finals, where Korea finished in 19th place, and played until the end without being replaced. He scored the winning goal in the 2nd minute of added time in the second half of the final Group F match against defending champion Germany (2-0 win).
Two years later, he was recognized as a top defender in the Japanese first division. Last season, he was a member of the K-League 1 Best XI and the national team in the round of 16 of the FIFA Qatar World Cup.
Ulsan Hyundai regained the top spot in K League 1 for the first time in 17 years with the arrival of Kim Young-kwon in the 2022 season. Shanghai Haigang of the Chinese Super League attempted to recruit Kim Young-kwon to advance to the 2023-24 AFC Champions League qualifying round, but failed to achieve the goal.