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Kim Min-jae, Lee Kang-in close to special final

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Paris Saint-Germain's Lee Kang-in, right, controls the ball against FC Barcelona's Joao Cancelo during the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals first-leg match in Paris, Apr. 10. EPA-Yonhap

A South Korean player has yet to really enjoy a final of the UEFA Champions League, the biggest club game in the whole world.Park Ji-sung was a mainstay of Manchester United’s triumph in 2008. Indeed, the midfielder was a standout in the semifinal win over Barcelona but was controversially left out for the final against Chelsea, not just the starting eleven but the entire roster.I still remember seeing the news filter through in the early hours of the morning in Seoul and the disbelief and then anger at the news.

United went on to lift the trophy, but it was bittersweet for Park. He went on to start two subsequent finals in 2009 and 2011. He was unlucky as both came against Barcelona at the height of its powers when the Spanish club was clearly the best team in the world. Both games were lost.Then Son Heung-min helped Tottenham Hotspur to the final in May 2019, and there was never any doubt that the forward was going to start against Liverpool in Madrid, but it ended in defeat.This season’s tournament has reached the semifinal stage, and there are still two possibilities.

Last week, Bayern Munich defeated Tottenham’s North London rival Arsenal in the quarter-final to advance to the last four and play Real Madrid.The winner of that game will obviously progress to the final in London. Either Paris Saint-Germain or Borussia Dortmund will be waiting at Wembley Stadium.If Bayern gets through to face Paris, there will be a possibility of defender Kim Min-jae facing his French-based national team colleague Lee Kang-in. That would be something special for Korean fans.

To have two fairly young players in the world’s biggest club game, and some would say the pinnacle of global soccer, given that the big European teams collect more talent than national teams have at the World Cup, would be a real feather in the cap of 커뮤니티 Korea.There are two major obstacles to this happening. The first is obvious. Bayern Munich is a powerhouse with six European titles, but Real Madrid has 14 and just has a way of winning in Europe. Getting past the Spanish titans into the final will be extremely tough. Paris will fancy its chances against Dortmund especially as it has Kylian Mbappe, probably the world’s best attacking player.

If it happens and both Munich and Paris go through to the final, then there are still questions about whether the two Koreans will play. Kim was a big signing for Bayern in the summer and played the first half of the season. Since returning from the Asian Cup, the defender has, however, played much less and at the moment, he is sitting on the bench for the big games, as he was last week in the win over Arsenal. There is even talk of Kim returning to Napoli, the Italian team he was so good for last season.Lee has been in and out of the starting eleven for Paris since he joined last summer but gets on the field regularly. This is to be expected for a player who has just turned 23 and has just joined one of the biggest teams in the world.There is still time for much to change. Whatever happens, it is impressive that South Korea has two players so close to the biggest prize in club football.

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