If the MZ generation, which is sensitive to the latest trends, visits SNS restaurants, professional soccer sprouts want promising restaurants for growth. Among the teams that have performed well over the past two years, K League 2 Bucheon FC stands out.
Coach Lee Young-min 50, who will mark his fourth year as the head coach of Bucheon this year, is always at the center of the promotion competition for K League 1, even though he has raised his students enough to be called the Promising Military Academy Director. It shows in person that the words fostering young talent and grade can coexist.
Sports Korea met with Lee Young-min in Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do, the second winter training site for the Bucheon club’s 2024 season, and listened to the preparation process, guiding philosophy, and messages to players and clubs.
The ‘Promising Military Academy Director’ made a hidden effort in Bucheon, ‘K League MZ Holy Land’
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Fire of Growth created by the director’s Persistence. 파워볼사이트 추천
The most noticeable difference between the 2021 season when Bucheon was at the bottom and the 2022 and 2023 seasons when it advanced to the semi-playoff is the backside. Bucheon scored only six goals after 30 minutes in the second half of the 2021 season, the lowest among the 10 teams in the K-League at that time. In contrast, the team turned around to be No. 1 18 goals among 11 teams in the 2022 season and No. 3 16 goals among 13 teams in the 2023 season. The team was able to accumulate that much points by drawing a tie in a game that seemed to be losing, and winning a game that seemed to be tying.
After finishing bottom of the league in the 2021 season, which was my first year in office, we made a tactical compromise to achieve a good performance in a limited number of players. This is also the coach’s strategy. Tactics, which are the overall color of a team, are important, but we also need to change the team to a fluid strategy depending on the situation. We can adopt different tactics this season as well. I believe that poor performance slows down the growth of players and the team. The 2022 and 2023 seasons were definitely the years that we were able to grow thanks to the support of our performance.
In an interview with Sports Korea in December last year, Yoo Byung-hoon, the current head coach of Anyang who served as the head coach of FC Anyang in 2015 and 2016, explained that his strength was his persistence to find the best breakthrough. What about now, eight years later.
I am still obsessed laughs. I feel quite uncomfortable when I can’t find a solution. When I find a problem in any part, I put in a lot of effort to solve it. If a coach cannot find a way by himself, he sometimes gives homework to the coach and the analyst. When an idea is not come up no matter how many times they put their heads together at a meeting, they often ponder on their way home alone and find a way. In that case, I ask an analyst for a video of a foreign soccer team, which I have been watching a lot recently, but Leverkusen of the German Bundesliga is one of the teams I have been watching a lot recently. I was curious how this team was able to play more than 20 games without losing 18 wins and 4 draws in the Bundesliga this season as of Sunday. Leverkusen also uses 300 games like Bucheon, so I organized the parts that can be applied to the team starting from the first round. I also show the videos to players whenever I have time.
2024 Bucheon, Lee Youngmin’s drawing. 2024 Bucheon.
Lee Young-min has already led a team for four years in the K-League, where there are many coaches who are stepping down after failing to fulfill a season. He is also the longest-serving coach of the K-League 2’s 13 teams. I still lack skills, he says.
I’m not a little old, but I haven’t been a coach for a long time. I still need to build up more experience. That’s why I’m grateful to the Bucheon club and Mayor Cho Yong-ik for recognizing me so far. I think the team is moving in a good direction thanks to the harmony of the coach’s thoughts and the club’s direction.
Lee, who spoke humbly about himself, said, I was confident to Bucheon players. I finished the interview looking forward to the 2024 season in Bucheon.
The team is moving in a way that would not be strange to any of the more than 30 players. The training sessions were divided into one to three quarters, and even if the team makes the best 11 players in each quarter, it still performs well above a certain level. Of course, the team needs to outline its flagship performance ahead of the opening match on March 2, but I believe all players should be given a fair chance during the training camp. I am so happy to see how good the players are.