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| 사진=파르티잔 |
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| 사진=파르티잔 |
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Ko Young-joon, who entered the Serbian league, is getting a chance to play again.
Ko Young-joon, born in 2001, is a young adult who debuted through the Pohang Steelers to the Pohang first team. He grew up step by step on the Korean national team by age. From the 2020 season, he started playing in the first team after being called by then Pohang coach Kim Ki-dong. Ko's growth has been steep. From the 2021 season, he has been recognized as the future of the team while playing as the main player of Pohang.
Ko Young-joon, a second-line offensive midfielder, was a small but technical midfielder. He even had the commitment to play for the team. He also had attack point productivity because of his good movement to the space. Although he was not evaluated as having good goal-scoring ability, he grew up well in Pohang and played for the national team in 2022 at the call of coach Paulo Bento.
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| Courtesy of the Korea Professional Football Association |
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After his peak performance at Pohang in the 2023 season, he moved to Serbia's prestigious Partizan through the 2024 winter transfer window. Ko Young-joon, who became a European player, seemed to adapt well in his debut season as he played all the rest of the league schedule in the second half.
However, in the 2024-2025 season, Ko Young-joon was actually reduced to an abandoned existence in the team. It wasn't Ko's problem. It was due to internal problems in Partizan. As soon as the league schedule for the 2023-2024 season ended, Partizan replaced coach Igor Dulyai, who recruited Ko Young-joon. From this point on, Partizan was dizzy. The internal situation was not organized due to successive managerial changes, and Ko Young-joon became a victim in the process.
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| 사진=파르티잔 |
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This is what Marco Johannovic, the Partizan's interim coach, said himself. "The problem with Ko was language. In spite of all the problems, he acted professionally. When I was the coach, Ko Young-joon trained separately" he once said. Ivica Iliev, the then-Partizan sports director, reportedly removed Ko Young-joon from his power.
At the beginning of the 2024-2025 season, Ko Young-joon played only about 45 minutes, whether as a starter or a substitute, but was excluded from the team's roster from the end of September last year. Ko Young-joon wasted time without being included in the game list. In other words, growth has been delayed as it has lost a time when it is not enough to run in full swing.
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| 사진=고영준 SNS |
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Fortunately, Ko Young-joon also has another opportunity as coach Srjan Blagojevic leads Partizan from 2025. After the winter break, Ko is back on the roster to play. It was his first appearance in five months. Of the last four league games, Ko Young-joon has been deployed as a substitute three times.
Now, Ko Young-joon's job is to prove his skills on the field. Since it is a second-line resource, the way to definitely rise in the main competition is attack points. Things can get better if Ko Young-joon shows it clearly because he hasn't scored much and helped in Partizan.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
