Season Review · Part 22
Season Review, Part 22: Park Jae-hwan, the Left-Footed Center Back the Back Four Left Behind
Signed to replace Kim Ha-jun, nine starts in the spring, one bad touch against Cheongju, then nine unused bench appearances and no place in the squad once Caio arrived: why Park Jae-hwan disappeared after Gimhae, and what he still offers.
Part 21 covered Yoon Seok-ju, the midfielder who came into the side when Kim Do-gyun switched to a back four. Part 22 is the defender who went out of it at the same moment. Park Jae-hwan started nine of Seoul’s first fifteen league matches and has not played a minute since.
The season in one paragraph
Park Jae-hwan arrived from Gyeongnam in January as the answer to a specific question: who replaces the departed Kim Ha-jun in the defense. He is 191 centimeters, left-footed, strong in the air, and had played 36 league matches for Gyeongnam in 2025. He said on signing that he was aiming to play every match in full, to help build the division’s meanest defense, and to get five goals or assists himself. He began the season on the bench, came into the back three against Busan in Round 3, and from May he was a regular: six straight starts from Gimpo to Cheongju, the best of them a clean sheet at Jeonnam. The last of them was the 2-1 home defeat to a Cheongju side that had not won all season, and his loose touch in the box gave them the equalizer. Then the break came, the 3-4-3 went, and Kim built his new back four around Baek Ji-woong, Kim Oh-kyu and Osmar. Park sat on the bench, unused, for nine straight matches. In August the club signed Caio Marcelo, another left-footed center back, and since Round 25 Park has not been in the matchday squad at all. No injury has been reported. His line through Seoul’s 26 league matches: 10 appearances, 803 minutes, no goals, no assists, no cards.
By the numbers
| 2025 (Gyeongnam) | 2026 through Round 27 | |
|---|---|---|
| Appearances, starts | 36 | 10, 9 |
| Minutes | 803 | |
| Goals | 2 | 0 |
| Assists | 1 | 0 |
| Yellow cards | 0 | |
| Aerial duels won | 30, at 68 percent | |
| Clearances | 32 | |
| Tackles, interceptions | 10, 10 | |
| Blocked shots | 4 | |
| Passes completed, accuracy | 414, 86 percent | |
| Accurate long balls | 17, at 33 percent | |
| Times dribbled past | 2 | |
| Seoul’s record in his starts | W5 D1 L3 |
2026 defensive and passing figures are FotMob’s. His tenth appearance was a cameo of about a minute.
What he has done well
He wins in the air. Thirty aerial duels won at 68 percent, and 32 clearances, in what amounts to nine matches. Aerial strength was the first thing the club listed when it signed him, and it showed. When Seoul defended deep at Jeonnam on May 31, with the home side throwing extra bodies forward late in the heat, the match finished 1-0 and the digest singled him out for organizing a makeshift line through the last ten minutes.
He is clean. Nine starts, no yellow card, six fouls, dribbled past twice. That says something about his style: he defends his zone and wins the ball in the air rather than diving in.
The left foot does things. At Suwon FC in April his cross from the left found Oh In-pyo for a volley in the first half. Against Gimpo on May 3 it did more. After a set piece, his left-footed ball into the box struck the arm of Gimpo defender Im Chang-seok, VAR gave the penalty, and Euller eventually converted it for the winner. It went in the books as Euller’s goal. It started with Park.
He held a line together in May. Kim Oh-kyu missed the Seongnam match, Park started beside Osmar and Baek Ji-woong, Osmar went off injured inside twenty minutes, and the rearranged defense still won 3-1. A week later he started again in Gwangyang and kept the clean sheet. Park and Kim Oh-kyu were being described in April as a center-back partnership gaining stability, and MyDaily wrote that his understanding with Baek Ji-woong around Kim Oh-kyu was improving.
Where the same mistakes keep showing up
The touch against Cheongju. Sixty-two minutes into Round 15, with Seoul 1-0 up at Mokdong, the ball dropped to him in his own box and he could not control it. Star News described it plainly: the ball ran loose and Lee Jong-eon, falling, shot it in. Cheongju scored again in the fourth minute of stoppage time and won their first league match of the season. It was his last start.
Nobody took charge. After the win over Gimpo, Kim Do-gyun gave his back three a mixed review: “Park Jae-hwan, Baek Ji-woong and Park Jin-young defended well, but I felt the absence of a player to hold the center and lead.” That was the recurring note on Park’s spring. The digest faulted his communication with Baek on goals against Gimpo and at Chungnam Asan, where Seoul lost 3-0. Sports Chosun, reviewing the winter signings in April, wrote that the new defensive recruits carried “noticeably less weight” than the players they replaced.
Pace. Sports Chosun’s praise after the Suwon FC win came with a qualifier: Osmar and Park, “relatively lacking in speed,” had not exposed the space behind them. In a back four that asks center backs to defend more grass, that is the weakness that counts. His narrowest escape came at Daegu, when he held Serafim’s shirt to stop a run down the right late in the match and the referee waved away Daegu’s protests.
His strengths, and what they mean for the last six
He is a set-piece asset in both boxes. Seoul have conceded too many goals from corners and second balls this season. A 191-centimeter defender who wins two of every three aerial duels is the obvious late substitute when Kim is protecting a lead against sides that will send the ball long.
He knows the back three. Kim went back to a three against Daegu, with Caio, Osmar and Baek Ji-woong. If any of them is suspended or hurt, Park is the other center back in the building who played in that shape through the spring.
Depth, in a squad that needs it. Baek Ji-woong has already been moved between defense and midfield, and Osmar is 38. Park was still being named in July as a possible partner for Baek if the defense settled. He has to be ready if that moment comes again.
The verdict at Round 27
Park Jae-hwan did a reasonable job in the system he was signed for. He won his headers, stayed out of the referee’s book, started the move that won the Gimpo match and helped keep the clean sheet at Jeonnam. He also made the mistake that let Cheongju back into the match they won at Mokdong, never became the organizer Kim said the defense lacked, and was on the wrong side of the tactical change at the break. When the club signed a left-footed center back in August, it said most of what needs saying about where he stands.
Grade so far: C. Nine starts and some real value in the air, but a fringe player since July, and not through injury.
Match log
| Round | Opponent | Result | Role or Minutes | Goals | Assists | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 2 | Suwon Samsung, Gyeongnam | Did not play | Unused substitute | |||
| 3 | Busan (H) | L 2-3 | Start, 80 | Left side of a back three | ||
| 4 | Cheonan (A) | D 0-0 | Did not play | Unused substitute | ||
| 5 | Daegu (A) | W 3-1 | Start, 90 | Held Serafim late, no penalty | ||
| 6 | Suwon FC (H) | W 3-0 | Start, 45 | Cross for Oh In-pyo, replaced by Osmar at halftime | ||
| 7 | Paju (A) | W 3-1 | Did not play | Osmar in for him | ||
| 10 | Gimpo (H) | W 2-1 | Start, 90 | His delivery drew the handball for the winning penalty | ||
| 11 | Chungnam Asan (A) | L 0-3 | Start, 90 | |||
| 12 | Yongin (H) | D 2-2 | Start, 45 | |||
| 13 | Seongnam (H) | W 3-1 | Start, 90 | Rearranged defense after Osmar’s early injury | ||
| 14 | Jeonnam (A) | W 1-0 | Start, 90 | Clean sheet | ||
| 15 | Chungbuk Cheongju (H) | L 1-2 | Start, 90 | Loose touch for the equalizer, last start | ||
| 16 to 24 | Did not play | Unused substitute nine straight matches | ||||
| 25 to 27 | Not in the squad | Caio Marcelo signed in August |
Statistics from the K League record and the club site, with match detail from the season’s digests and Korean match reports. Two corrections to earlier digests: Cheongju’s equalizer in Round 15 was scored by Lee Jong-eon, not Lee Jung-won, and the Round 10 penalty came from a Gimpo handball on Park Jae-hwan’s delivery rather than a foul won by Euller. Part 23 reviews the manager.