It’s the year of the irrelevance. Baseball’s Texas Rangers won their first championship ring in 62 years, and baseball’s LG Twins won the Korean Series for the first time in 29 years, since 1994. On the 19th, T1, representing the Korean LCK, defeated China’s Weibo Gaming in the finals of the ‘2023 League of Legends World Championship’ (Rold Cup) to win the title for the first time in seven years.
After watching LG and Texas win the title, many teams in the Korean League of Legends (League of Legends) are hoping to be the first to break free. It feels like it hasn’t been that long since the last championship, but when you do the math, it’s easy to see that quite a few years have passed. Of the current K League clubs, eight have won the title: Jeonbuk (9), Seongnam (7), Seoul (6), Pohang (5), Suwon (4), Busan (4), Ulsan (4), and Jeju (1). Using the current year as a guide, the last time a team won the title was: Ulsan (0 years), Jeonbuk (2 years), Seoul (7 years), Pohang (10 years), Suwon (15 years), Seongnam (17 years), Busan (26 years), and Jeju (34 years).
Ulsan won back-to-back titles for the first time in franchise history this year after shaking off the 17-year jinx last year. Jeonbuk is the team furthest away from irrelevance. Jeonbuk, which fell behind Ulsan, missed out on back-to-back titles for the first time since 2014. Seoul’s championship clock stopped in 2016. Pohang, which achieved the K League’s first double (league and FA Cup) in 2013, won the FA Cup for the first time in a decade this year, but its chances of winning the league title had to wait. Suwon hasn’t regained its glory since last winning the title in 2008 under Cha Bum-geun. This year, they face relegation.
Seongnam (formerly known as Seongnam Ilhwa), which held the title of the most decorated team in the K League before the “Jeonbuk Dynasty” was established, has been away from the championship for 17 years amid the turmoil of its reorganization as a civic club. It was relegated last year and now plays in the second division. Busan, one of the K League’s most iconic clubs from the 1980s and 1990s, hasn’t won a title in 26 years, since 1997. Their situation is similar to that of baseball’s Lotte Giants, who won the championship in 1992. Like Seongnam, Busan is looking for promotion from the second division.
The team furthest away from the title is Jeju, whose fans have wanted to win for longer than LG fans. Jeju hasn’t won a title in 34 years since 1989, when they won the league under Kim Jung-nam, the former Yugong Elephants. 1989 was the year that Jeju’s veteran midfielder Koo Ja-cheol was born, an aspiring soccer player who made his professional debut for Jeju and rose to the national team. He would go on to play a key role in South Korean soccer’s bronze medal at the London Olympics, play all over Europe, and then return to Jeju to burn his last candle. Since then, Jeju has changed its name three times and relocated twice. They’ve finished runner-up four times and been relegated once. This season, they finished in ninth place, their lowest finish since being promoted. 토토사이트
LG, which finished last in 2008, has consistently played “fall baseball” before winning the championship this year. From 2015 to this year, Ulsan finished 7th-4th-4th-3rd.