Season Review · Part 3
Season Review, Part 3: Min Sung-jun, Every Minute and One Arm at Hwaseong
The only Seoul E-Land player to play every minute of the league season, seven clean sheets, the save from Demetrius that held a point in August, a corner he did not reach at Seongnam and a save rate well below last year's: what Min Sung-jun has done well, where the same mistakes repeat, and what he means for the last six.
Part 2 covered Park Jae-yong, the striker who scores with whatever arrives. Part 3 is the man at the other end, the one Seoul E-Land signed to replace the goalkeeper who carried them through the second half of 2025. He has not missed a minute, and the story of his season is how many of those minutes decided points.
The season in one paragraph
Min Sung-jun arrived on Christmas Day as the best goalkeeper in K League 2: 31 matches, 25 goals conceded and a league-high 15 clean sheets for the Incheon side that won the title, and the Best XI award that came with it, the first honor of his career. Seoul needed him because Gu Sung-yun, who had kept ten clean sheets in 19 matches after joining in the summer of 2025, left for FC Seoul, and the backup went to Cheongju. Min said on signing that he had come to win the league, “no matter what.” Through Round 27 he has played all 26 of Seoul’s league matches and all 2,687 official minutes, kept seven clean sheets and conceded 30. He made the save of the season from a Demetrius header at Hwaseong, made five saves to keep Suwon Samsung to one goal in the biggest match of the season, and cost Seoul two points at Seongnam by coming for a corner he could not reach. His save percentage is down about twelve points on last season. His manager says the second half of the year has been steadier than the first, and the numbers agree.
By the numbers
| 2025 (Incheon, K League 2) | 2026 through Round 27 | |
|---|---|---|
| Appearances, starts | 31, 31 | 26, 26 (ever present) |
| Minutes (official) | 2,687 | |
| Goals conceded | 25 | 30 |
| Goals conceded per match | 0.81 | 1.15 |
| Clean sheets | 15 (league high) | 7 |
| Saves | 65 (Sofascore) | 42 (FotMob), 46 (Sofascore) |
| Save percentage | 72 percent (Sofascore) | 58 percent (FotMob), 61 percent (Sofascore) |
| Penalties faced, saved | 3, 0 | |
| Errors leading to a goal | 1 by this site’s count (Round 24); 0 by FotMob | |
| Errors leading to a shot | 4 (Sofascore) | 3 (Sofascore) |
| Pass accuracy | 86 percent (Sofascore) | 76 percent (FotMob), 89 percent (Sofascore) |
| High claims | 17 (FotMob) | |
| Yellow cards | 4 | 1 |
| Season awards | K League 2 Best XI |
The split is the most useful line in the table. Rounds 1 to 16: 19 goals conceded in 16 matches, a save rate around 55 percent. Rounds 18 to 27: 11 in 10, around 68 percent, and five in the last six. Of the 30 goals, three were penalties and at least six came from corners or set pieces.
What he has done well
He has not missed a minute. No other Seoul player has started all 26. The back line in front of him has changed shape between a back three and a back four at least five times, and the captain’s armband has passed between Kim Oh-kyu, Park Chang-hwan and Osmar. The goalkeeper has been the one fixed point. For a club that had to replace both of its goalkeepers in the winter, that is the brief he was signed to meet, and he has met it.
He wins points on his own. At Jeonnam in May, with Seoul chasing and the hosts countering, Korean reports described “consecutive saves” before Carius won it in the 88th minute. At Busan in August he turned away Kim Chan and then Ahn Yeon-beom’s first-time shot in the first half, then punched clear in a six-yard scramble just before Osmar’s block on the line, and Seoul won 2-1. Five days later at Hwaseong, in stoppage time at the end of the first half, Kim Dae-hwan crossed from the right and Demetrius headed it properly from close range. Min threw out an arm and kept it out. It finished 0-0. Against Paju he flew to turn away Choi Beom-kyung’s half-volley. Against Daegu on Saturday, at 2-1 with 18 minutes left, he saved Cesinha’s deflected shot and then blocked Deckers’ follow-up. Take those moments out and Seoul are several points worse off.
He has been better since the summer. Kim Do-gyun said so on Saturday: “Min Sung-jun has been steadier in the second half of the season than in the first. He is helping the team.” His Sofascore save rate was in the mid-50s before the World Cup break and is close to 70 since. The spring had the heavy days: three goals from three shots on target against Busan in March, three at Chungnam Asan, two against Yongin with no saves to show for it. Since July the goals against him have mostly been ones no goalkeeper stops.
He is good one against one. Several of his best saves this year came with a forward clean through. He saved Lima’s one-on-one against Ansan before the flag went up. Against Suwon Samsung he blocked Dubickas in the ninth minute, came out quickly to narrow the angle on Kang Sung-jin twice, and saved from Luis at close range. The goal that beat Seoul that day came from the corner after the first of those saves, a rehearsed routine that ended with an unmarked finish at the far post.
He says the right things and plays to them. In January he said a goals-against rate below one and clean sheets “are not records you make alone,” and that he would rather prove himself in matches than in words. He said Gu Sung-yun was an outstanding goalkeeper and that his own job was to help the team go up his own way. In an attacking side, he said, a goalkeeper’s job is to make the defense harder to break without taking away the attack.
Where the same mistakes keep showing up
The save rate has fallen. Last season at Incheon he stopped about seven of every ten shots on target he faced. This season it is about six, and FotMob puts his save percentage around the middle of the division’s goalkeepers even as his clean-sheet count ranks near the top. Part of that is the team: Incheon defended deep, Seoul attack, and he said in February that more danger comes with that. Part of it is him. The early-season matches where the first shot on target went in were the matches Seoul dropped.
Set pieces around his six-yard box. Seoul’s worst leak of the season is dead balls, and a goalkeeper who commands his area is supposed to shrink that problem. At Seongnam in August he came for a corner, Benicio flicked it on past him, and Jeon Min-gyu stretched out a leg to poke it in from the scramble. Sports Chosun wrote that the goalkeeper failed to deal with it, and the digest called it the first real error of his season. It cost two points. Against Daegu he dropped a looping volley from Deckers into his own net in stoppage time and was rescued only because the referee had already blown for offside. FotMob’s trait graph puts him in the bottom eighth of K League 2 keepers for high claims and sweeping. He is a shot-stopper first. Seoul have conceded from corners at Chungnam Asan, at Seongnam, against Suwon Samsung and against Daegu, and only one of those was his fault, but a goalkeeper who claims more would take some of that pressure off the men in front of him.
The ball at his feet under pressure. In normal build-up he is tidy, and Sofascore has his passing near 89 percent. When he is pressed it goes wrong. Against Gimpo in May the press nearly caught him out. Against Suwon Samsung, in the 19th minute, Kang Sung-jin cut out his pass and Luis shot, and Min had to save his own mistake. Kim Do-gyun’s explanation afterward for the shaky start was that “there were a few mistakes in the build-up starting from the goalkeeper.” Sofascore logs three errors leading to shots this season. None has yet become a goal. With six matches left, one would be enough.
No penalty saves. He has faced three, from Hwaseong in April, Chungnam Asan in May and Frizzo in the sixth minute of stoppage time at Suwon FC in July, where the penalty went down the middle as he dived. All three went in. The Suwon FC one was worth two points.
His strengths, and what they mean for the last six
Reflexes for the kind of matches that are left. Seoul’s remaining opponents are Gimpo, Gimhae, Yongin, Jeonnam, Chungnam Asan and Gyeongnam, all from the bottom two-thirds of the table. Most will sit in and hit Seoul on the break, which means few shots against and one or two big ones. That is the kind of match he has saved all season: Jeonnam in May, Hwaseong in August. In a race where Seoul trail Suwon FC on goals scored, a keeper who turns a 1-1 into a 1-0 matters as much as a striker who does the reverse.
The set-piece test at Chungnam Asan. The home match against Chungnam Asan on the second-to-last weekend brings back Kim Jong-min, who headed two past him in May, one from a corner. That is the fixture that will show whether he has closed the gap in his game. The instruction is simple: claim what he can, punch what he cannot, and do not come for the ones out of reach.
He has done this before. Last season he was the first-choice goalkeeper on the team that won this division, and he kept the job even after a national-team goalkeeper, Kim Dong-heon, came back from military service. He said in February that he left Incheon because he had tasted promotion and wanted it again, and that the experience gave him a calm he wanted to pass on to his teammates.
The verdict at Round 27
A goalkeeper who has played every minute, kept seven clean sheets, won points at Jeonnam, Busan and Hwaseong largely by himself, and improved as the season went on is doing the job he was signed for. He has not been the dominant presence of 2025. The save rate is down, the corners around him keep causing trouble, one of them was his fault, and the pressure on his distribution against Suwon Samsung showed where opponents will push. He has been reliable, and in a handful of matches decisive, but he has not been the difference-maker Seoul’s big Christmas signing was sold as.
Grade so far: B. The grade rests on the availability, the Hwaseong save and a second half of the season that has been clearly better than the first. The Seongnam corner, the penalties and a save rate twelve points below last year keep it out of the B plus range.
Match log
| Round | Opponent | Result | Minutes | Goals | Assists | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Suwon Samsung (A) | L 1-2 | 90 | Debut; needed treatment after a collision with Kim Seong-ju | ||
| 2 | Gyeongnam (H) | W 1-0 | 90 | First clean sheet | ||
| 3 | Busan (H) | L 2-3 | 90 | Three goals from three shots on target | ||
| 4 | Cheonan (A) | D 0-0 | 90 | Clean sheet; Seoul down to ten from the 87th minute | ||
| 5 | Daegu (A) | W 3-1 | 90 | |||
| 6 | Suwon FC (H) | W 3-0 | 90 | Clean sheet | ||
| 7 | Paju (A) | W 3-1 | 90 | |||
| 8 | Ansan (A) | W 2-0 | 90 | Clean sheet, little to do | ||
| 9 | Hwaseong (H) | L 1-2 | 90 | Beaten by a penalty and Demetrius | ||
| 10 | Gimpo (H) | W 2-1 | 90 | Nearly caught out by the press | ||
| 11 | Chungnam Asan (A) | L 0-3 | 90 | Two Kim Jong-min headers, then a penalty | ||
| 12 | Yongin (H) | D 2-2 | 90 | Set-piece concession inside the first quarter hour | ||
| 13 | Seongnam (H) | W 3-1 | 90 | |||
| 14 | Jeonnam (A) | W 1-0 | 90 | Consecutive late saves before Carius’s winner | ||
| 15 | Chungbuk Cheongju (H) | L 1-2 | 90 | Stoppage-time winner against | ||
| 16 | Gimhae (A) | W 3-1 | 90 | Beaten by a deflection | ||
| 18 | Suwon FC (A) | D 2-2 | 90 | Frizzo penalty in the sixth minute of stoppage time | ||
| 19 | Cheonan (H) | W 4-3 | 90 | Two late goals against | ||
| 20 | Busan (A) | W 2-1 | 90 | Saves from Kim Chan and Ahn Yeon-beom, key punch; booked | ||
| 21 | Hwaseong (A) | D 0-0 | 90 | Save from Demetrius’s header at the end of the first half | ||
| 22 | Ansan (H) | W 3-1 | 90 | Saved Lima one on one, flag up | ||
| 23 | Paju (H) | D 1-1 | 90 | Flying save from Choi Beom-kyung | ||
| 24 | Seongnam (A) | D 1-1 | 90 | Came for a corner and missed it; Jeon Min-gyu scored | ||
| 25 | Chungbuk Cheongju (A) | W 2-0 | 90 | Clean sheet; strong on García’s headers | ||
| 26 | Suwon Samsung (H) | L 0-1 | 90 | Five saves; 19th-minute pass cut out, saved his own mistake | ||
| 27 | Daegu (H) | W 2-1 | 90 | Late save and block; dropped an offside volley into his net |
Statistics from the K League record and the club site, with match detail from the season’s digests and Korean match reports. Corrections to earlier digests: the Round 26 digest said he had two straight clean sheets before Suwon, when he had one, and the Round 5 digest’s claim that he captained the side is not supported by the lineups, which list Kim Oh-kyu. Part 4 follows.