“Older players are disrespected, while juniors get cheeky”: The truth behind five-year feud rumors in Korean football, as Lee Chun-soo takes direct aim

[Financial News]  ‘They don’t run on the pitch, and they cross the line in the locker room.’
As rumors of internal discord in South Korea’s national football team erupted into public view, Lee Chun-soo, a former national team player turned broadcaster, deliberately weighed in with harsh criticism. It was a blunt rebuke of the team’s painful current state: not only have its performances lost their fighting spirit, but its hierarchy has completely broken down.
On the 10th, Lee Chun-soo looked back at the Venezuela match played on the 2nd on his YouTube channel, Richunsu, and gave a clear-eyed assessment of the struggling national team.
Shortly after the Venezuela match, defensive linchpin Kim Min-jae (FC Bayern Munich) showed strong displeasure toward the bench as he was being substituted. In a post-match interview, he also caused a stir by bluntly telling his teammates, “We all need to put our heads down and run.”
When former soccer player Lee Hwang-jae, who appeared on the program with him, began by saying, “This is something that would have been unimaginable in the national team in the past,” Lee Chun-soo immediately pointed to the breakdown in communication and discipline within the squad.
“When I was in the national team, having someone in the middle was really important,” he said. “There used to be someone who made sure the older players weren’t disrespected and kept the younger players from getting out of line, but that has completely broken down now.” It was a painful assessment that the national team’s “middle layer,” which once connected the authority of senior players with the respect shown by juniors, has disappeared.

The players’ passive approach to matches also came under scrutiny.
“First of all, they don’t run. Before you can even talk about tactics, there’s no movement,” Lee Chun-soo said. “What kind of 90-minute game has only one or two runs into space? What kind of football do you expect to play when you’re just standing there?” he said, voicing his frustration.
He also offered a sharp interpretation of Kim Min-jae’s pointed remarks. “Isn’t the essence of that interview that there are players who didn’t put their heads down and run?” Lee Chun-soo said. “I really don’t like seeing players who used to be completely focused on football looking like kids who are too caught up in other things outside the game,” he added.

The most shocking point is that these signs of infighting are not a one-off incident.
“People were already talking about this conflict at the Qatar World Cup. It kept flaring up even as two World Cup cycles passed, and if it’s still going on now, it’s a problem that has been dragging on for at least five years,” Lee Chun-soo said emphatically.
“You can see the conflict is still ‘ING (ongoing).’ There are clearly still internal issues that haven’t been reconciled,” he said, laying bare the national team’s festering internal problems.
[email protected] Jeon Sang-il Reporter