Li Lei stayed in Yang, and Guoan's left rear position was vacant. This winter, Guoan has been looking for a substitute for Li Lei, and the team finally selected Pohang Iron and Steel's full-back Jiang Xiangyou.
On Tuesday (22nd), South Korean international Kang Heung-woo has completed his farewell in the Pohang Iron Formation. However, in the strict sense of the word, he has not officially joined Beijing Guoan. This week, he will also undergo a medical examination in Seoul, "which can be seen as the last step in joining Beijing Guoan, and only after passing the medical examination will the personal agreement signed between him and the club take effect to confirm the official transfer." South Korea revealed. It is estimated that if all goes well, Jiang Xiangyou's joining the Chinese Super League Beijing Guoan will be officially announced this weekend.
The arrival of Jiang Xiangyou marks the arrival of the prologue of the new Hallyu. Once upon a time, South Korean foreign aid was very popular with Chinese Super League clubs, and the three major centers of the South Korean national team, Kim Young-kwon, Hong Haohao, and Jang Hyun-so, once broke through in Chinese football. But the arrival of Kang Sang-woo marks the beginning of the "Korean Wave" (after the 1993 age group). Of course, before that, Beijing Guoan had also imported the younger Kim Hyun-jae (1996) from Jeonbuk Hyundai, but that was a special case after all, and the latter had already transferred to Tuchao Fenerbahce last summer.
One thing Kang Heung-woo and Kim Hyun-jae have in common is that they are both active South Korean internationals. However, South Korea coach Paul Bento has not been particularly important to him, from June last year until now, Kang Seung-woo has been on the list in every Korean team training session, but has only made two substitute appearances against Sri Lanka's top 40 and warm-up matches against Iceland. In fact, this also blames Paul Bento, after all, in the left-back role, the two veteran internationals Kim Jin-so and Hong Zhe are more experienced. However, Jiang Xiangyou's performance at the club level is still quite brave, and even outstanding. As a winger, in addition to being named the league assists king (12) in 2020, he has been selected for the K1 League Team of the Year in the last two years. In addition, last season, he also led POHANG Iron and Steel to the final of the AFC Champions League as captain. In 2020, he led Pohang to third place in the league and reached the final four of the cup.
Jiang Xiangyou's ability to gain the favor of Beijing Guoan has a lot to do with the Chinese international Li Lei liuyang Swiss grasshoppers. However, the whole negotiation process is much more difficult than expected. Originally, on January 5, POSCO had reached an agreement with Jeonbuk Hyundai on the transfer of Kang Seung-woo, however, the progress of negotiations between Jeonbuk and Kang Heung-woo himself has been very slow. Later, on January 9, Kang Followed the South Korean team to Turkey for training, at which point Beijing Guoan began to join the scramble, but Jeonbuk Hyundai did not give up quickly, and they hoped to continue to keep in touch with Kang Without stopping negotiations. It was just that at that time, Kang Xiangyou himself was still in the South Korean team and could not be distracted, and he put his main energy into the preparation for the round of 12, and did not respond for a long time. However, according to the reporter's understanding, during this period, Jiang Xiangyou also found some old South Korean internationals who had experience in the Chinese Super League to understand the situation, especially about the format and schedule of the new season of the Chinese Super League.
After the end of the round of 12 at the end of January, Kang Xiangyou, who returned to South Korea, took the lead in the final negotiations with Jeonbuk Hyundai, but finally broke down. On February 15, Jeonbuk Hyundai said, "After signing a transfer agreement with POMEI, we negotiated with the players on salary issues for nearly a month, but we have not been able to narrow the differences of opinion on conditions such as basic salary and bonuses." In addition, Jeonbuk Hyundai also showed an attitude of "it is difficult to maintain a relationship of trust" towards Kang Heung-woo at the same time to negotiate the Chinese Super League club. With the new K1 league season kicking off last weekend, almost everyone thought that Jiang Xiangyou would remain in Pohang. It is worth mentioning that in the second half of the first round of POHANG Steel against Jeju United, Kang Xiangyou also wore the No. 10 shirt for 45 minutes.
However, Beijing Guoan's thirst for talent eventually impressed Jiang Xiangyou. Last week, the second round of talks began. In fact, when he first contacted Guoan, Jiang Xiangyou had already informed the Chinese Super League club of the fact that it was "negotiating a contract with Jeonbuk Hyundai", and he did not hide the K League championship. In contrast, the South Korean international's factors are also realistic - better treatment and salary conditions. Since then, Jeonbuk Hyundai has no choice but to give up, while the national security team continues to pursue, and Jiang Xiangyou's landing in the Chinese Super League is like pushing a boat along the water.
As for how much the transfer fee can be, there are different opinions. The latest figure disclosed by the Chosun Sports Daily was 1 billion won (5.3 million yuan), but earlier, the JoongAng Ilbo said that the transfer fee offer was close to 1.8 billion won (9.5 million yuan). But one thing is for sure, the transfer fee negotiated between POHANG Steel and Jeonbuk Hyundai was 1.1 billion won (5.8 million yuan), and under normal circumstances, the transfer fee for the purchase of Kang Xiangyou is expected to be on top of this figure.
Wen | Wang Xiaorui
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