There is a growing concern on my part as a fan of Korean Football. Our fans are getting a little too biased and are becoming unreasonable with their expectations. Yes, we have star players, and yes they are worthy of our praise, but this expectation that they need to be playing every minute of every game due to our evaluation of their talent and recent performances doesn’t demand the kind of uproar I am seeing from Korean fans. This brings an immense amount of negative energy, especially with the fanbases of the teams our star players are on.
Don’t get me wrong, there are two sides to every story here. Do our Euro-based players face some “Asian” bias of their own? Of course. This is obviously a touchy subject when we talk about race being a factor in how a player is judged, but it’s an obstacle our players are used to and it’s something that they have to overcome daily. We are not helping them one bit, by demanding they start every game, by saying a player played well due to one highlight when if you watched the match in its entirety he maybe didn’t have his best game, or by getting defensive for some constructive criticism someone may have on our players. It’s okay to defend our players if they are being unfairly criticized; trust me, I get that part of it. The bigger the player, the bigger the team they are on, the more pressure and notoriety (good or bad) they will receive. That’s just the nature of the beast, and nobody understands that better than Son Heung-Min, Kim Min-Jae, and Lee Kang-In.
We also have to know the difference between top-level European football and Korean National Team matches. We can’t take a Sonny masterclass against the Philippines, Kang-In dribbling around 4 defenders against Singapore, or Min-Jae shutting out Oman and use that as a reason why our guys should be getting more respect from their club fans or more playing time from their club managers. It truly baffles me, and while yes, it’s great our players are performing at a high level for the Korean National Team, let’s try to simmer down on the hype a little bit against lesser competition. You have to be able to distinguish between the levels of competition our Euro-based players are playing against when it comes to club football and playing for your country.
My challenge to Korean fans is to be better and try to be unbiased regarding our star players. They aren’t perfect, no player is, and we must realize other world-class players contribute to the squad that we must respect. Let’s be happy that we live in an era where we have so many Euro-based players currently and try to enjoy every moment they get to spend on the pitch instead of demanding too much, defending every mishap, and overhyping any little highlight you may come across. We need to do better. If we want to be any help at all to our players, we have to.