With the French champions Paris Saint-Germain in the final, their South Korean midfielder Lee Kang-in will look to become just the second player from his country to win the prestigious UEFA Champions League title this weekend.
PSG, having already lifted three domestic trophies this season, will take on Inter Milan in the final of the top European club competition at Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, at 9 p.m. Saturday (4 a.m. Sunday in South Korea). PSG are going for their first Champions League crown, while Inter are chasing their fourth.
Only one South Korean player, former Manchester United midfielder Park Ji-sung, has won a Champions League title. However, Park did not play in the 2008 final when his team defeated Chelsea on penalties. In a move that irked many South Korean fans, Man United head coach Alex Ferguson didn't even put Park on the substitutes' bench for the final. After starting both legs of the semifinals, Park was reduced to a spectator in the stands for the championship match.
When Park did take the field in the finals of the 2009 and 2011 tournaments, Man United lost to FC Barcelona on both occasions, by 2-0 and then 3-1.
In the 2019 final, Son Heung-min and Tottenham Hotspur fell to Liverpool 2-0.
Lee now has a chance to become the first South Korean to play for the Champions League-winning club in the final. However, given his recent standing with PSG, Lee appears to be a long shot to take the field.
He has logged 11 matches in the Champions League this season but did not play in both legs of the quarterfinals and again in the semifinals.
Lee's last official match for PSG came on May 10 against Montpellier in Ligue 1. He logged the full 90 minutes then, the first time he'd played an entire Ligue 1 match since January.
There is a bit of South Korean football history at stake for Lee.
Son and Tottenham won the second-tier UEFA Europa League title on May 21. A PSG victory will make Son and Lee only the second South Korean set of players to win both of the European continental titles in the same season.
In 2008, when Park won the Champions League title, countrymen Kim Dong-jin and Lee Ho claimed the Europa League trophy with the Russian club Zenit Saint Petersburg. (Yonhap)
