Park has only improved with age/photo credit: Associated Press
Since helping the South Korean National Team reach the semi-finals in the 2002 World Cup, midfielder Park Ji-Sung has risen to international stardom. Ji-Sung began his career playing for Kyoto Purple Sanga in Japan, but his performance and winning goal against Portugal in 2002 saw a transfer to the Dutch team PSC Eindhoven. Working under the former South Korea National Team coach Guss Hiddink, Ji-Sung excelled after working through a rough patch of injuries. Once he regained physical fitness, he quickly regained his winning form.
While at Eindhoven, Ji-Sung had a total of 64 appearances and scored 11 goals, impressive considering he acts primarily as a defensive midfielder. During his time in the Dutch league, Park became so beloved by the Eindhoven fans that they wrote a song about him entitled, “Song for Park.”
Ji-Sung’s outstanding performances on both the international and club scenes attracted the attention of the English Premier League and he signed a deal to join Manchester United in 2005. 2006 cemented Park as a South Korean starter following his equalizing goal against France in that year’s World Cup. He has worn the Captain’s armband for both his club and home country and, contrary to the general rules of soccer, age has only helped Ji-Sung improve.
Currently the 28-year-old Ji-Sung has 137 appearances and 13 goals with Manchester United, with goal number 13 coming as recently as this past weekend. Park has earned 84 caps with the senior Korean National Team and 11 international goals. It is without question that he will be an essential part of South Korea’s game in South Africa this year, but will Park Ji-Sung be enough to help South Korea make it out of Group B and earn his home nation a spot in the knockout stages? Considering that 2002 was the first time South Korea had ever made it out of the group-stages, there will be lots of eyes of the team and on Park Ji-Sung. Here’s hoping both rise to the occasion.
The two American’s who recently signed with Aris Thessaloniki in Greece, Eddie Johnson and Freddy Adu, have transitioned well into the club’s lineup. Adu had an assist on Johnson’s 90th minute goal to give their side a 2-1 victory.
remember when?/ teenage Adu hailed as future great by Pele
Johnson has had more opportunities to shine in the MLS and on loan to Cardiff City, though he he’ll have to stay busy if he wants to impress his current owners at Fulham. As for Freddy Adu, it’s high time for a resurgence. So far, so good.
Here are some highlights from earlier today…
Who believes that Freddy Adu can put his career back on track? What’s missing in his game? What have we discovered that wasn’t apparent before?
A group of Harvard students have developed a soccer ball that collects and stores electricity for household use. While it’s still a prototype, the ’sOccket’ ball may be the solution to a problem that low cost kerosene emissions have created all over the world. We have long believed that a soccer ball can be the world’s greatest community-building tool. We never dreamt of a ball that could actually provide people with clean energy and a means for survival in some of the world’s most underserved communities.
How does it work? Here’s a brief explanation from their website…
“sOccket captures the energy from impact that is normally lost to the
environment when the soccer ball is kicked, dribbled, thrown (you get
the picture)and stores this energy for later use.”
AMAZING. This is a game-changer.
Visit their site to learn more (www.soccket.com) and stay tuned for future developments…
First off, THANK YOU to everyone for contributing to our first poll! With a couple hundred (now at ~400) more votes/suggestions on our poll, we’ve made further changes.
As we said before, the US Men’s team is without a nickname and we are working to find one that sticks. In order to keep up with our growing community, we’ve introduced a system of relegation/promotion for votable names. The latest names to be relegated were “New Boots” and “Independence”. Newly added are “The United” and “Stars”. Since I made the changes this morning, there have already been several votes for each of the new names.
If you have another name in mind, please submit. We can make history! Feel free to get creative. Just know that we’ve already dismissed the following…
The Pussycat Dolls
The Hamburgers
The Ponzies
The Nukes
The Bald Eagles
The Clan
PS: There has been some discussion about the pre-existence of “The Yanks” as a team nickname. This is not entirely true. The name was popularized by the English a while back and it may, if we so chose, be adopted by actual USMNT supporters as the official name. Some people have argued that the name is self-deprecating, while others see it as a perfect fit. You may notice that votes are fairly even at this point. We will tally all votes at the end of January, followed by one final set of changes. Two will be voted off, and two will be added. Our hope is to have a name chosen by the end of February so that we can get official shirts printed as we head into spring.
Thank you for your votes, suggestions, and comments!
You may have heard the news that Sony has developed 3D video recording technology for use in South Africa next summer. We wont really know until we try, but this technology is supposed to revolutionize the way we watch sports.
Sony most recently announced that the 3D footage will be made available on special Blu-Ray discs that will work on current Playstation 3 consoles. If you didn’t already buy a PS3 for the love of FIFA 10, you now have another good reason to put your hard earned dollars to use.
At a Liverpool Press conference, the Spanish striker expressed a bit of frustration with Spain’s loss to the US this past summer.
“They beat us in the Confederations Cup and it was, I think, not the real thing…we had 27 shots on target but we couldn’t score.”
NOT THE REAL THING!? Them’s fightin words.
Wait a second. When a Spanish striker (possibly the best in the world) can’t get over a loss, something is up. We got under their skin. If we make it out of our group in South Africa, there’s a good chance that we’ll have an early shot at Spain. We’ll be ready.
photo credit: Getty Images/linked from Yahoo Soccer
Looking toward his June 12th opener against the US Men’s team, Wayne Rooney regards US internationals Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan as two world-class competitors who will give England a run for their money.
In 1950, the US squad became the first team ever to beat England in World Cup competition. A win for the US in June would be an equally massive upset. We’re dealing with the most gifted (and cohesive) English squad in decades. While critics accuse the Brits of always expecting to win the World Cup, they seem to be making a fairly convincing argument this time around. Rooney is scary. Defoe is scary. Gerrard, Lampard, Terry, etc etc…
To USMNT’s credit, the world watched us take a fully-stacked Spain to pieces in the Confederations Cup. We have finally achieved wild card status. If we can beat Algeria and Slovenia and lose to England, we face Germany in the round of 16. If we beat all three teams, we have the pleasure of facing a second place finisher in the round of 16. I digress. Our primary goal at the moment is getting Onyewu and Davies (and Jermaine Jones, perhaps?) back to 100% fitness.
Rooney is being a gentleman. He may not be doing any nut-stomping in South Africa, but he is a scrapper for life. Check out this vid from March.
This is great news for the USA. Opening match for the group is June 12th – US vs England. The word cup kicks off in Soccer City Stadium – Mexico vs South Africa June 11th.
Park has only improved with age/photo credit: Associated Press
