{"id":586298,"date":"2026-08-16T09:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T09:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/586298\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T09:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T09:28:09","slug":"end-of-an-era-south-koreas-sun-sets-in-the-premier-league-but-japan-rise-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/586298\/","title":{"rendered":"End of an era? South Korea\u2019s sun sets in the Premier League but Japan rise | Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been a cruel summer for South Korea. The national team crashed and burned at the World Cup, the police are investigating the football association, reports have emerged about bribes paid to foreign referees<\/a> in 2011 and 2012 and there is a real prospect of the the English Premier League being Korean-free for the first time since 2005.<\/p>\n

That was when Park Ji-sung signed for Manchester United, to start a love affair between the Land of the Morning Calm and England\u2019s top tier that has continued ever since. Park won four titles and his mantle was taken over in 2015 by Son Heung-min at Spurs.<\/p>\n

Son ended his successful decade, during which he became a club captain, by lifting the Europa League in 2025. There are other Taegeuk Warriors who are fondly remembered such as Ki Sung-yueng, Lee Young-pyo and Lee Chung-yong, and then those that would be tougher quiz questions. Cho Won-hee, Yun Suk-young and Park Chu-young barely featured for Wigan, QPR and Arsenal respectively.<\/p>\n

Others have cult hero status. Ji Dong-won\u2019s last-minute winner<\/a> against Manchester City will never be forgotten by Sunderland supporters while Lee Dong-gook, who had a long and successful career, could not hit a barn door with Middlesbrough. While there have inevitably hits and misses, overall, the exports have been a source of pride.<\/p>\n

Now, though, those who stayed up late or got up early to watch their compatriots are going to have more free time. After Son left London for Los Angeles<\/a>, Hwang Hee-chan was the sole participant, but the forward went down with Wolves. There are three Koreans on Premier League books, but Yang Min-hyeok of Spurs, Brentford\u2019s Kim Ji-soo and Park Seung-soo of Newcastle are likely to be once again loaned out.<\/p>\n

There was talk of Lee Kang-in leaving Paris Saint-Germain for England, but in July the 25-year-old attacker joined Atl\u00e9tico Madrid to take Antoine Griezmann\u2019s No 7 shirt. The former child TV reality star, introduced to the nation at the age of six and at Valencia\u2019s academy four years later, is now perhaps Asia\u2019s biggest name, but is going to play in England only in Champions League games. At the moment, there are not many other Koreans who look capable of becoming established Premier League players.<\/p>\n

That is not the case for Japan<\/a>, with the Land of the Rising Sun taking the mantle from its eastern neighbour. Last season, Kaoru Mitoma shone with Brighton while there was also Daichi Kamada at Crystal Palace, joined at Selhurst by Takehiro Tomiyasu, Ao Tanaka at Leeds and Wataru Endo with Liverpool.<\/p>\n

Hwang Hee-chan was relegated with Wolves last season. Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The new season will see more. As Lee was signing for Madrid, Hull snapped up Hidemasa Morita, last seen in England playing for Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League quarter-final against Arsenal in March. Shortly after, Daizen Maeda became Ipswich\u2019s first Japanese player. The forward, who joins after a successful Celtic spell with five league titles, was last in action for Japan against Brazil<\/a> at the World Cup.<\/p>\n

While that game, with the five-time champions coming from behind to win in the 96th minute, was a frustrating one for the Samurai Blue, the team at least did OK. Korea\u2019s World Cup campaign was, however, a disaster with a 2-1 win against Czechia<\/a> followed by a 1-0 loss by Mexico<\/a> and a truly dismal defeat by the same scoreline to South Africa<\/a>. The head coach<\/a> of the national team and the president of the FA have resigned and Park Ji-sung has been roped in head a new \u201creform football committee\u201d. It\u2019s a mess.<\/p>\n

Park has talked of the need to follow Japan\u2019s long-term philosophy to close the gap with what is clearly Asia\u2019s best team. Increasingly, Japanese players, who have historically headed to Germany first, want to play in England. It is perhaps not a coincidence that two of the promoted Premier League teams have recruited Samurai Blue as there are plenty who have impressed in the Championship in recent years.<\/p>\n

It all leads to growing Japanese interest in the Premier League and the opposite in Korea. In 2022, AIA, Tottenham\u2019s shirt sponsor, commissioned a report that claimed there were 12 million fans of the club in the country. Even given Son\u2019s undoubted popularity, wild European claims of fan numbers in Asia have been a feature since before Park arrived at Old Trafford 21 years ago. There are certainly nowhere near 12 million now, with one Korean TV executive saying viewing figures for Spurs games are nowhere near what they were.<\/p>\n

That is hardly surprising as widespread Premier League interest in Korea, like Japan, not a historic lover of English football, is still largely player driven. During his time in London, Son\u2019s smiling face would appear in the top corner of the television screen when he was on the pitch to keep casual viewers from turning over. In Park\u2019s time, Manchester United games were often the only one shown all weekend.<\/p>\n

When City and the rest of the world were witnessing the Ag\u00fcero moment in 2012<\/a>, in Korea, fans had to watch the entirety of United at Sunderland. That was the final sighting of Park in a red shirt and it looks as if Hwang\u2019s appearance against Burnley in May will be the last Korean representation in England\u2019s top tier for some time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been a cruel summer for South Korea. The national team crashed and burned at the World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-586298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}