"We are the champions!" blares Freddie Mercury's voice over the loudspeakers (and from beyond the grave) as FC Seoul team members take turns lifting the trophy and being showered by confetti. Sunday was the final leg of the K-Lague championship, reprising Wednesday's first leg, a hard earned 2 - 2 result in Jeju at which FC Seoul scored the equalizer in the closing seconds, stunning Jeju United players who had watched FCS snatch first seed from them in the final two games of the regular season.
Sunday's result was a squeaker, with the Red-and-Black coming from down a goal to take the 2 - 1 victory and their first crown as FC United on the 4 - 3 aggregate. They previously won as Lucky-Goldstar Hwangso FC in 1985 and 1990, and the Anyang LG Cheetahs in 2000.
The teams fought to a first-half stand-off, trading goals quickly as Jeju capitalized on sloppy distribution from the goalkeeper, FCS earning a penalty less than one minute later on a take-down in the box, tucked away by Jung Jo-gook. Brazilian Adilson, or Adi, who recently returned to the line-up after being sidelined most of the season with a knee injury, scored the gamewinner off a corner kick, and also earned himself "Man of the Match".
This being the championship, the powers-that-be did things up right, including a Christmas tree and an all-girl marching band:
Well, except for the fact that they were completely out of beer before halftime. Which is not just unbelievable, but unforgiveable! Fortunately, my pal Charles and his lovely wife were with me, and they volunteered to make a quick trip to the nearby GS25. Problem solved--but what kind of mickey mouse operation runs out of beer at the championship game? Here is Charles with me right at the end of the game, after the reinforcements arrived!
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| FCS mascot (dragon, I think?) leads the fans in cheering |
5 comments:
Hey, you were in the W section this time? I've never seen the E section sell out before Sunday... You beat me to this post, I'm still working on it, it will be up today or tomorrow....
Yeah, that Noksapyeong station is a real loo-loo. I do like the view from on high, but your seats look pretty great. I'm sure the crowd was overwhelming from there.
Joanna: Yep. Usually, I go for E, but this time I wanted great seats--added bonus, they're usually 20,000, but I paid only 14,000! Don't know why. The stadium was more packed than I've ever seen it! That's still no excuse for running out of beer before halftime!
GB: I wonder which is deeper, Noksapyeong or Yeouinaru?
Our seats were practically perfect (just remember I offered you...) and it was the biggest sports event I've been to in Korea. The official attendence was 56,769, and it was FCS's 18th consecutive home game without a loss (extending their record).
Both: I'd love to go to the home opener with you in late Feb/early March!
I kind of assumed they would run out of beer since that's happened to us before too at normal games, so I got enough at the beginning of the game. But, I was getting sicker and sicker as the game progressed and kind of stopped caring about alcohol anyway... if I had been in better health it may have been more of a concern...
you are convalescing quite well, i see
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