We caught up with Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors head coach, Kwanghyeon Lee to find out how his side have enjoyed this year’s Otten Innovation Cup…
How have you found your time here in Eindhoven?
It's very good weather and a nice facility here - we really like to come to Europe. We also really like to see how culturally different it is here and how people in Europe come together to play football, even when they don’t know each other out in the parks!
And what about the tournament, how has that been for you?
It has been a really good experience for our players and there are famous teams participating, but there are two matches in one day, but if they were spread out to one match per day it would be better, I think.
Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors has one of the youngest teams of the tournament. How are they coping with the games and how many are they having to play?
We educated and trained the players in build-up play and attacking in preparation for it, and it has been a really good experience for them. Also, European teams are very tall and physically very dominant so mentally our players are a little bit struggling. But we tried to make things calm when they are playing, just like when they trained and so far we’re really satisfied with that.
You're the only Asian side at this year’s tournament – you must feel very proud to be representing your part of the world?
The Otten Cup is very famous and there are very famous teams participating this year especially. It is really a big honour that we were invited to the Otten Innovation Cup and it is a really good experience for the players, they can develop from this tournament and it is really appreciated from PSV Eindhoven to be invited.
What experience will your players take back to Korea from the Otten Innovation Cup?
We’ve been discussing with the coaches about this, and we think that Korean players are not really competitive in forward positions, so we asked the players to just please experience and enjoy the fight with the physically top players and that this is a really good chance to experience and develop from this tournament.