Lee Kang-in drew attention even before his professional debut, with the evaluation that he was the best talent ever produced by Spain’s Valencia youth team.
In July 2018, Super Deporte, a local newspaper in Valencia, Spain, reported that the Spanish Football Association had pushed for naturalization of Lee Kang-in three years ago. Lee Kang-in is eligible to win Spanish nationality after eight years of living in Spain as of June 30, 2019, the media said.
However, the Korea Football Association dismissed local media reports, saying, “The national team manager under the age of 19 found out through his father that he had no intention of doing so at all.”
Military service is the biggest obstacle for players playing on the European stage like Lee Kang-in. Not only is it not easy to enter Europe due to military service issues, but there are also cases where they return to resolve military service. Kwon Chang-hoon, a midfielder for the 2022 Qatar World Cup who was playing in the German Bundesliga, returned home after organizing his European life for four and a half seasons to resolve his military service. 온라인카지노
Moreover, Lee Kang-in is at the peak of his career at just 21 years old, moving to a big club representing the world called Paris Saint-Germain after making his name known in Spain’s Primera Liga. It is a situation where you can feel the military service problem more than anyone else.
However, there was no military service problem in Lee Kang-in’s mind. The only thought was to play as a Korean player with the national flag. At the Under-20 World Cup in Poland, he made a runner-up myth with his teammates and played 14 A matches, including the Qatar World Cup. Currently, Son Heung-min and Kim Min-jae are the core of the national team.
The same was true for the Hangzhou Asian Games. Lee Kang-in, who joined belatedly after playing the UEFA Champions League with the permission of his team Paris Saint-Germain, moved to the stadium where the match against Thailand was held on the day of his arrival in Hangzhou, saying he would see his teammates without even adjusting to the time difference.
After playing against Bahrain, he participated in the round of 16, the quarterfinals, the semifinals, and the final against Japan in Hangzhou, China, on the 7th, standing at the top of the podium with his teammates and won the gold medal. According to the reverse law, athletes can serve as “art and sports agents” instead of serving in the military if they rank third or higher in the Olympics and first in the Asian Games. Like Son Heung-min at the 2018 Jakarta Palembang Asian Games, he resolved military service confidently.
However, for Lee Kang-in, the situation at hand is more valuable than the benefits that follow. Asked “the military benefits allowed me to continue my career without a career break,” Lee Kang-in said, “I don’t think much about it,” and emphasized, “I will just do my best and become a good soccer player as I have always done so far.”
Overseas players who received military service benefits along with Lee Kang-in are Hong Hyun-seok, Jung Woo-young, and Lee Han-beom. Hong Hyun-suk led the entire team in the midfield with Baek Seung-ho, including the picturesque free-kick first goal in the quarterfinals against China. Jung Woo-young scored as many as eight goals to become the top scorer, and Lee Han-beom defended the back with a watertight defense like his role model Kim Min-jae.
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