At this point, it seems that Ulsan City can be referred to as the ‘city of football’.
If you hold onto Ulsan citizens passing by and ask them about the team that represents Ulsan, most of them will say Ulsan HDFC without hesitation. He is certainly right. However, there is another city-representing soccer team in Ulsan. The Ulsan Citizens’ Soccer Team (hereinafter referred to as Ulsan), which belongs to the semi-professional K3 League, is the main character.
Ulsan, which was newly founded at the end of 2018, is continuing its extraordinary moves in the league. Ulsan, which aims to become a “family-like club” under the father-like presence of coach Yoon Kyun-sang, is the team with the lowest player dropout rate in the K3 and K4 leagues. It is quite different from other teams that cannot avoid leaking squads every year. Coach Yoon Kyun-sang wants to break away from the fixed sports culture by not forcing the team to stay together and guaranteeing maximum autonomy outside of training and game hours.
This is not the only thing that attracts attention. Ulsan’s 7-80 percent of its players are from regions. The figure even reminds people of Athletic Bilbao in La Liga, which protects pure blood in Basque. Since its foundation, Ulsan has firmly established its philosophy of recruiting players who have never seen the light of day despite their outstanding talent and providing them with opportunities.
The team does not focus solely on fostering players. Coach Yoon Gyun-sang actively provides players with opportunities to explore the future outside of time. In fact, many players at Ulsan are reportedly taking their time to acquire leadership certificates. The team is also giving full support to nurture young leaders. 메이저놀이터
It can be considered that Ulsan has gone too far in terms of performing well. However, Ulsan has made remarkable history by winning the K3 League Basic (currently the K4 League) in the first year of its foundation, ranking second in the K4 League in the following year, and winning the K3 League in the 103rd National Sports Festival in 2022. Last season, it ranked fourth even with the lowest budget of the K3 League, and won the bronze medal at the 104th National Sports Festival.
Its operation is also similar to that of most professional teams. Using Ulsan Stadium with Korea’s top-notch facilities as its home stadium, Ulsan has a quite large media team along with its supporters “Blue Hayang” led by local teenagers. In particular, the media team system, which is divided into coverage, photography, and video, is comparable to the front desk.
Then, what is the ultimate goal of Yoon Kyun-sang, who has been with Ulsan’s civic soccer team for a lifetime as the first head coach? “It is true that we have been in our seventh year since our foundation and have achieved tangible results,” coach Yoon Kyun-sang said. “My dream is not to overreact to the results, but to develop the players and further promote to the K League 2 and K League 1 and play the derby match against Ulsan HDFC.”