Season Review · Part 12
Season Review, Part 12: Osmar, Ten Wins and One Loss at Thirty-Eight
Fifteen appearances out of 26, three injury spells, and a team that has lost once with him on the pitch: what Osmar has done well, where the same problems keep showing up, and why the last six depend on him staying fit.
Part 11 covered Son Hyuk-chan, the man who ran on in the 22nd minute against Seongnam when Osmar limped off with his ankle. Part 12 is the player he replaced, the oldest man in the squad and the one whose presence changes Seoul’s results more than anyone’s.
The season in one paragraph
Osmar turned 38 in June. He re-signed in December alongside Kim Oh-kyu, said the move from FC Seoul to Mokdong had been “the right choice,” and started the year in his tenth straight season in the No. 5 shirt. Then his body kept interrupting. He felt a muscle go in Round 2 against Gyeongnam and missed three matches. He came back at halftime against Suwon FC and scored, played three more, and disappeared for a month after the win at Ansan in April. He returned against Seongnam in May and lasted 22 minutes before an aerial duel turned his ankle. That was eleven matches missed out of 26. Since the World Cup break he has played every minute of all ten, and the numbers attached to him are hard to argue with: Seoul have won ten, drawn four and lost once in the 15 league matches he has played, and they were unbeaten in his first 13, nine wins and four draws, before the Suwon Samsung defeat. He has two goals, two assists and no bookings. He has also spent part of August as an experiment in midfield that his manager called off inside a half, and he was on the pitch for the set-piece goals that cost Seoul points at Seongnam and against Suwon. The case for Osmar is the record with him. The case against is the record without him, which is why he matters so much.
By the numbers
| 2025 (36 league matches, 1 playoff) | 2026 through Round 27 (26 league matches) | |
|---|---|---|
| Appearances, starts | 37, most | 15, 14 |
| Minutes | 2,726 | 1,369 |
| Goals | 3 | 2 |
| Assists | 1 | 2 |
| Yellow cards | 3 | 0 |
| Seoul’s record with him | 10 W, 4 D, 1 L (34 points) | |
| Seoul’s record without him | 4 W, 2 D, 5 L (14 points in 11 matches) | |
| Goals conceded per match | 0.87 with him, 1.55 without | |
| Clean sheets in his matches | 5 | |
| Aerial duels won | 28, at 72 percent | |
| Clearances, tackles, interceptions | 61, 19, 16 | |
| Shots blocked | 5 | |
| Pass accuracy | 90 percent | |
| Accurate long balls | 103, at 68 percent |
His K League career stands at 365 appearances: 282 in K League 1 with FC Seoul, 79 in K League 2 with Seoul E-Land, and four in the playoffs. After last season he was second among foreign players, behind only Dejan.
What he has done well
Seoul win when he plays. Put the two columns side by side. With Osmar, 34 points from 15 matches, a rate that would lead the division. Without him, 14 points from 11, a rate that would put a side in the bottom half. The goals-against figure moves the same way, from more than a goal and a half per match to fewer than one. Not all of it is him: the spring absences overlapped with a team still finding its shape, and the summer run came with Carius fit and Baek Ji-woong settled. But the pattern held through the season. The Sports Chosun preview before Cheongju in September called him the “unbeaten fairy,” and at that point it was literal: 12 matches, eight wins, four draws.
He is a set-piece player at both ends. Both of his goals and one of his assists came from dead balls. Against Suwon FC in April, on the pitch four minutes after coming on at halftime, he met Son Hyuk-chan’s free kick with a header that hit the post and Park Jae-yong, kept running, and put the rebound in. “I moved the way I was told to at the set piece, and the ball came exactly where we expected,” he said afterward. “I thought it might go out after the header, so I chased it to the end.” At Paju a week later he headed a long corner down for Baek Ji-woong’s equalizer. Against Cheonan in July he redirected Carius’s corner into the net for 2-1. At Cheongju he stepped up into the attack on a corner, recycled the ball to Ahn Joo-wan on the left, and watched the teenager curl in the second goal of the youngest brace in K League history. Kim Do-gyun named him first when he listed who he wanted scoring from set pieces before Daegu.
The passing from the back. Seoul’s first win of the season came from his left foot: a long diagonal to Euller on 43 minutes against Gyeongnam, a cross, and Lee Chan-dong turning it into his own net. At Busan in August he clipped an early ball over the top for Euller that was only just flagged offside. His FotMob numbers are 90 percent of his passes completed and 103 accurate long balls, and the site’s match reports keep describing the same thing: the ball goes forward faster when it goes through him.
He throws himself in front of it. The moment of the win at Gudeok came in a six-yard scramble after Busan had equalized: Oh In-pyo hacked one clear, Min Sung-jun punched another, Jeon Seong-jin met the loose ball, and Osmar flung a knee in the way on the line. Seoul scored twice afterward. Four weeks later, at Seongnam, the best chance of the night was his left-footed drive on 73 minutes, and it took the save of the round from Lee Kwang-yeon to stop it. He has not been booked once in 15 matches.
He talks, and people listen. Star News reported in April that he spent his first layoff analyzing the team’s habits and went round correcting them when he returned: body shape open, first touch forward. After the loss to Suwon Samsung he did it again, out loud. “Everyone is an adult, not a student, so there was no need to talk around it,” he said after the Daegu win. “What we are showing is not yet the level we want.” He told the squad they were good enough and had no reason to be scared the way they had been against Suwon, and said it felt good to see what he had asked for appear on the pitch a week later. In September, asked about the goal, he said people might think it was promotion, “but given our potential, the goal is the title.”
Where the same problems keep showing up
Availability. Eleven missed matches in 26 is the headline and it is not bad luck in the usual sense. A muscle in March, a month out after Ansan in April, an ankle in May. His manager’s own words before the Seongnam return were careful: “I don’t know about 90 minutes. His condition is fully back, and he played in a practice match last week.” He then lasted 22 minutes. Since July he has been fine, every minute of ten matches in nine weeks, but a 38-year-old playing every minute of a promotion run is a risk the club is carrying rather than managing.
The space behind him. Sports Chosun wrote in April that Seoul’s aggressive press was covering the side’s known weakness, the space behind the veteran pairing of Kim Oh-kyu and Osmar. It has not gone away. Against Hwaseong in August Leonard Pllana turned him and hit the post from an offside position. The press still protects him, and when it does not, the line drops.
The midfield experiment did not work. Seoul spent part of August trying to save his legs by moving him into the holding role. The site’s digest after Ansan praised it as the elegant answer. Kim Do-gyun did not. “We prepared with Osmar as the single pivot,” he said after the 3-1 win. “In midfield, the work rate and the defending were not smooth. We changed positions quickly, and after that the game was stable.” He tried it again for the whole match at Seongnam, where Seoul conceded from a corner and drew. He went back to center-back at Cheongju and Seoul kept their first clean sheet in a month.
Set pieces against. He is Seoul’s best defender in the air, which makes the set-piece concessions around him hard to ignore. The Seongnam goal came from a corner that bounced off Benicio and through Min Sung-jun’s hands. The only goal Suwon Samsung scored at Mokdong, Dubickas on nine minutes, came from the second phase of a corner. Deckers headed Cesinha’s corner in for Daegu, and seven minutes earlier Osmar’s own clearing header from a Cesinha cross came back off his post. Against Paju a bad first touch from him in the buildup, followed by Baek Ji-woong’s control error, started the move that led to the goal 46 seconds into the second half. None of these is a pattern of carelessness. Together they are the reason Seoul’s defense, good with him, has not been great.
His strengths, and what they mean for the last six
Height and timing in both boxes. All six remaining opponents are in the bottom half, and most will sit deep and defend set pieces with numbers. Seoul’s route through a low block this season has been dead balls and second balls, and Osmar is in the middle of both. A goal from a corner at Gimpo or at home to Gimhae would be worth more than its face value, because goals scored is the tiebreaker with Suwon FC.
The long pass. When an opponent does step out to press, a center back who can find Euller from his own half is the fastest way past the first line, and it is the same pass that produced Seoul’s first win of the year.
Keeping him on the pitch. The three weeks between Daegu and Gimpo on October 9 are the best thing to happen to his body since the World Cup pause. After that come five more matches around a bye. With Caio Marcelo and Kim Oh-kyu as alternatives, the smart move may be to pick which of the six he sits out rather than wait for his body to decide.
The voice. Seoul’s players froze against Suwon and responded against Daegu. The man who said so in the dressing room captained FC Seoul and won a K League 1 title with them in 2016. In a run-in where one draw can cost second place, that is not a small thing.
The verdict at Round 27
On the evidence of the minutes he has played, Osmar has been Seoul’s most important defender and one of the three or four most important players in the squad. Seoul are a top-two side with him and a mid-table side without him, and he has been available for just over half the season. That is both the compliment and the complaint. He has been calm, clean and useful at both ends, and the one experiment that asked him to be something else did not work. If he plays all six, Seoul’s chances of second place go up. If he misses two, they go down.
Grade so far: B plus. On a per-match basis this is an A season. The eleven matches he missed, and the set-piece goals conceded on his watch in August and September, keep it at B plus.
Match log
| Round | Opponent | Result | Role or Minutes | Goals | Assists | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Suwon Samsung (A) | L 1-2 | Unused sub | |||
| 2 | Gyeongnam (H) | W 1-0 | Start | Diagonal that forced the own goal; felt a muscle | ||
| 3 | Busan (H) | L 2-3 | Injured | |||
| 4 | Cheonan (A) | D 0-0 | Injured | |||
| 5 | Daegu (A) | W 3-1 | Injured | |||
| 6 | Suwon FC (H) | W 3-0 | Sub, halftime | 1 | Rebound after his header hit the post | |
| 7 | Paju (A) | W 3-1 | Start | 1 | Headed a corner down for Baek Ji-woong | |
| 8 | Ansan (A) | W 2-0 | Start | Clean sheet, then a month out | ||
| 9 to 12 | Hwaseong, Gimpo, Chungnam Asan, Yongin | 1 W, 1 D, 2 L | Injured | |||
| 13 | Seongnam (H) | W 3-1 | Start, off 22 | Ankle, aerial duel | ||
| 14 to 16 | Jeonnam, Chungbuk Cheongju, Gimhae | 2 W, 1 L | Injured | |||
| 18 | Suwon FC (A) | D 2-2 | 90 | Back in the three | ||
| 19 | Cheonan (H) | W 4-3 | 90 | 1 | Header from Carius’s corner | |
| 20 | Busan (A) | W 2-1 | 90 | Knee block on the line | ||
| 21 | Hwaseong (A) | D 0-0 | 90 | Clean sheet | ||
| 22 | Ansan (H) | W 3-1 | 90 | Started in midfield, moved back in the first half | ||
| 23 | Paju (H) | D 1-1 | 90 | Loose touch before Paju’s goal | ||
| 24 | Seongnam (A) | D 1-1 | 90, midfield | Drive saved on 73 | ||
| 25 | Chungbuk Cheongju (A) | W 2-0 | 90 | 1 | Corner recycled for Ahn Joo-wan’s curler; clean sheet | |
| 26 | Suwon Samsung (H) | L 0-1 | 90 | First loss in a match he played | ||
| 27 | Daegu (H) | W 2-1 | 90 | 365th K League match; header off his own post |
Statistics from the K League record and the club site, with match detail from the season’s digests and Korean match reports. One correction to earlier digests: Osmar was born in June 1988 and has been 38, not 37, since June, and his goal against Suwon FC came from a free kick, with the official assist credited to Park Jae-yong. Part 13 follows.