Park Yong-woo and Nam Tae-hee play in the second leg of the final at Haja Bin Zayed Stadium in the UAE on the 26th at 1 a.m., one of them achieving ‘first ACL win’ since debut.
Park Yong-woo's Al Ain (United Arab Emirates, UAE) and Nam Tae-hee's Yokohama F. Marinos (Japan) will clash for the '2023-2024 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League (ACL)' trophy.
Al Ain and Yokohama will face off in the second leg of the finals at the Hazza bin Zayed Stadium in Al Ain, UAE, at 1 a.m. on the 26th (Korean time).
In the first match, Al Ain took the lead in the 12th minute of the first half in Japan, but lost 1-2 after allowing Asahi Uenaka to equalize in the 27th minute of the second half and then giving up a comeback goal to Gota Watanabe in the 39th minute of the second half. .
Al-Ain, playing the second game at home, will aim to turn the tables, while Yokohama will aim to solidify their position.
UAE's prestigious Al Ain is attempting to win the championship for the first time in 21 years since the 2002-2003 season, while Japanese powerhouse Yokohama is looking to the top of Asia for the first time since the club was founded.
Although there is no professional soccer K-League 1 team in this ACL final, it is attracting attention as a match between Park Yong-woo and Nam Tae-hee, who played for the national soccer team in the past.
Al Ain's Park Yong-woo wore the national flag for the first time last year under former coach Jurgen Klinsmann. At the time, Park Yong-woo developed into a top defensive midfielder in the league as a member of Ulsan HD, then transferred to Al Ain, and participated in the '2023 AFC Asian Cup' held in Qatar, but bowed his head after failing to win the championship. Park Yong-woo, who was reborn as a key player in Al Ain, helped defeat Al-Nasr (Saudi Arabia), featuring Cristiano Ronaldo, in the ACL quarterfinals, and Al-Hilal (Saudi Arabia), featuring Huben Neves and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, in the semifinals. . In particular, he played full-time as a starter for 11 out of 13 games from the group stage to the first game of the finals, showing stable defense and passing. Yokohama's Nam Tae-hee played for the national team from 2011 to 2022. In particular, he played a key role in the national team under former coach Uli Stielike in the mid-2010s, scoring a total of 7 goals in 54 games, including participating in the 2015 AFC Asian Cup held in Australia. Nam Tae-hee, who played in the Middle East for a long time with Al Duhail and Al Sadd (Qatar), moved to Yokohama last summer, and contributed two assists in the second match against Ulsan in the quarterfinals. In the first game of the last finals, Nam Tae-hee started as a starter and played the role of a link between defense and attack in the midfield along with Takuya Kida and Uenaka. One of Park Yong-woo and Nam Tae-hee, who have not yet won an ACL title, will record their first win in the upcoming finals. 스포츠토토맨