Just A Few Things - Daegu FC Vs. Incheon United

Credit- Incheon United FC

Is The Great Escape On Again?!

Finally after 15 attempts, Incheon finally got their first victory of the season, their first win in the league since a 2-0 win over Sangju Sangmu last November. They had to dig really deep to keep hold of their precarious one-goal lead thanks to Stefan Mugosa’s first-time strike on 30 minutes. Incheon had possession early on in the match, but afterwards they had to be in their box to defend whatever Daegu had to offer. There wasn’t a distinct disciplined defensive shape deployed as it was mostly all hands on-deck mode when they went back defending. The defenders showed excellent bravery in getting their bodies in the way of Daegu’s shots as they kept on sliding in front of them

This could well be a turning point for Incheon and their new man in charge Jo Sung-hwan, who did wonders with Jeju United in his last job. Incheon has done the escape from the relegation zone before for the last four seasons where they were at most finish four points above the relegation play-off zone. Their closest call was last season where a 0-0 draw at Gyeongnam in the final round spared them from the relegation play-offs and in turn condemned Gyeongnam to play it instead.

It took a long while for Incheon to finally have something to celebrate and understandably so as they posed in front of the camera for a picture capturing the relief on their faces Now we’ll see if they can build on this. They’ve narrowly escaped doom five times already in the last six seasons (Incredible, isn’t it?), but can they pull off an astonishing sixth?

Daegu Stonewalled

It was definitely not Daegu FC’s day, especially for their attack. With a stacked offence with Kim Dae-won, Edgar Da Silva & the returning Cesinha, Daegu, you would expect Daegu to bounce back from their disappointing 2-0 loss to Jeonbuk last week by getting a couple of goals. Instead, chance after chance they have created didn’t yield the dividends they needed. Not even the introduction of Dejan Damjanovic and a change of system didn’t get Daegu the breakthrough they wanted.But Edgar perhaps was the most frustrated of them all. The Brazlian had chance after chance, header after header and most of them were agonizingly metres off-target while others were either saved by a certain keeper (More on him next) or went way off-target. To give an indication how Daegu were bad with their chances, they had 28 shots but only 7 of them were on-target. This is one of the worst performances the usually reliable Daegu frontline has ever done, especially against a team propping up the league table. They threw everything they could, kitchen sink included, but it just wasn’t meant to be.

Lee Tae-hee On Fire

Saving the best point for last here. A major reason why Incheon kept frustrating Daegu was their man between the sticks. Lee Tae-hee was called upon to mend the goal and the keeper wound up doing a stellar man-of-the-match performance. Tae-hee did not put a foot wrong as he read every threatening situation correctly. For example, denying Cesinha & Kim Dae-won by closing down the space for them to shoot and making himself big to do so. Perhaps the most stunning save that Lee Tae-hee did was getting just his fingertips to guide Jung Seung-won’s 40-yard stunner to the bar and he was once again called upon minutes later when he stunningly saved another Cesinha effort when his own defenders who were trying to stop the Brazilian were blocking his sight.What makes this even more astounding was that this is Lee Tae-hee’s first start of the season so could you imagine if he started all Incheon’s previous games? His composure, bravery and reading of the situation helped Incheon tremendously. Based on this match, surely he has to start the next match that could crucially define their season at home against Suwon Samsung Bluewings, the team above them by six points.