Incheon K League 1 Team Breaks 9-Game Winless Streak, Acting Manager Byun Jae-seop: "We will Increase Ball Possession"


Interim manager Byun Jae-seop, who was tasked with leading the rebound of professional soccer K League 1 Incheon United, revealed his plan to increase ball possession even if it means 'defending first and then counterattacking.'

Incheon, led by interim manager Byun Jae-seop, won 2-0 in an away game against Gwangju FC in the 23rd round of the Hana Bank K League 1 2024 held at the Gwangju Football Stadium on the 14th.

With this, Incheon has earned 3 points for the first time in about two months since the match against Daejeon Hana Citizen (1-0 win) on May 18.

Coincidentally, on the day that Coach Cho Sung-hwan, who stepped down on the 5th due to poor performance, took over the reins of Busan I-Park in K League 2, Incheon also ended its 9-game winless streak (5 draws, 4 losses) in the league.

Coach Byun, who emphasized before the match that ending the winless streak was his immediate goal as caretaker coach, felt good about defeating Gwangju and winning. https://bit.ly/outlookindiatoto

In a post-match press conference, acting manager Byun said, "While we were unable to win the last nine games, our fans cheered us on and encouraged us until the end.

I think we were able to achieve good results thanks to them," and added, "I want to tell the players that they worked really hard."

He added, "Gwangju is a team with a very good balance between offense and defense, and is quick to transition between offense and defense, so I asked the players to quickly understand the situation when they have the ball.

He smiled and said, "I think the part we prepared was well implemented and the result was good. "

Unlike when Coach Cho was in charge, Coach Byun's philosophy is that even if we play soccer where we crouch down and try to counterattack, we need to recover the ball possession itself a little more.

He said, "When I took over the team, I told the players to increase the ball possession.

He said, "We had a hard time because we played 'defense first, then counterattack' football, and the opponents blocked the ball and made a lot of mistakes, but I told them to put pressure immediately even if they lost the ball.

That part went well.

We will continue to play football that increases ball possession in the future."

Contrary to the interim manager Byun’s plan, Incheon was far behind in ball possession in the early part of the game.

As expected from Gwangju, which ranked first among the 12 K League 1 teams, they secured 76% of the ball possession in the early part of the game.

Incheon, which struggled against the opponent’s fierce offense, regained some of the ball possession as time went by, recording a ball possession rate of around 40% at the end of the game. https://paste.toolforge.org/view/efb76d3c

Interim manager Byun was satisfied, saying, “Gwangju is a team that puts a lot of pressure on us, so things didn’t go as planned in the first half, but we improved that in the second half and won a lot of the attack rights. ”

Interim manager Byun guessed that the news of coach Cho Sung-hwan’s appointment as Busan’s manager must have had a positive effect on the players.

He said, “I heard the news in the morning through an article.

I don’t know exactly what happened, but the coach made a fresh start, and I think that motivated the players,” and “I think the coach thought that we should break the current bad trend so that we don’t disappoint the achievements he has made for our team.”