Korean and Japanese national team wingers will face off at the end of the season as Wolverhampton and Brighton’s attack vanguards. Hwang Hee-chan, who failed to prevent his team from losing in the midst of Mitoma’s great success last November, is determined to take revenge this time.
Wolverhampton Wanderers will travel to Brighton in the 34th round of the English Premier League (EPL) in the 2022-23 season held at the American Express Community Stadium in Brighton, England on the 29th at 11:00 pm (Korean time). Currently, Wolverhampton is 13th with 10 wins, 7 draws and 16 losses (37 points), and Brighton is in 8th place with 14 wins, 7 draws and 9 losses (49 points).
Hwang Hee-chan’s Wolverhampton seems to have escaped from the crisis of relegation at the end of the season. At the beginning of the season, it was ranked first in relegation at the bottom, but after the appointment of coach Lopetegi, it succeeded in reversing the atmosphere and raised the league record to 13th place. If you don’t lose a lot of points in the remaining 5 games, you can succeed in remaining. The performance in the 5 matches played in April was 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss, which is comparable to that of most top-ranked teams. In the last game against Crystal Palace, he defended the opponent’s own goal from the beginning of the first half until the second half of the game.
Brighton, on the other hand, are going through a season-end crisis with thin depth. April started in 6th place in the league, but while Aston Villa ㅋㅋㅋ벳and Liverpool chased after a while, the red light was turned on to advance to the European competition. After losing at the end of a penalty shoot-out in the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United last time, in the match against Nottingham immediately before, complaining of physical problems in the second half, allowed two goals and collapsed 1-3. In particular, the fact that Colwill, who played as a substitute due to the injury of the main defender Webster, was unable to follow the opponent’s striker in the scene allowing a come-from-behind goal made me feel the problem of the thin player base once again.
The interest of the match is definitely the confrontation between the ‘Korean and Japanese national wingers’. Wolverhampton’s Hwang Hee-chan and Brighton’s Kaoru Mitoma are the main characters. In the national team, the two players, who are representative of flanking attacks, left Asia, where their respective countries are located, to face off for the second time in their respective teams.
In the confrontation between the two players held last November, Mitoma won a complete victory over Hwang Hee-chan. In the 10th minute of the first half, he became the starting point for the opening goal with a sensational outside pass, and in the 43rd minute of the first half, he finished Lallana’s cross with a header, scoring the team’s equalizer as well as his first Premier League goal. In the 38th minute of the second half, he attacked the left side of Wolverhampton with a graceful dribble breakthrough, and then distributing the ball to the center led to the winning goal and led the team to victory. WhoScored.com praised Mitoma after the game, giving him the highest rating of 8.3 among both teams.
Hwang Hee-chan promises revenge this time. Hwang Hee-chan, who started for the first time in 81 days in the last game against Crystal Palace, has finished warming up for the confrontation by running across the ground for 79 minutes. He played in 22 league games and scored only 2 goals and 1 assist, but with his unique reckless play, it is worth aiming for an attacking point if he attacks the space behind Brighton’s tired defense at the end of the season with a thin player base. Attention is focusing on whether Hwang Hee-chan’s outstanding performance will not only solidify the team’s remaining position in a situation where the gap with the relegation zone has widened, but also whether he will be able to win the confrontation with the representative wingers of Korea and Japan.