Season Review · Part 20
Season Review, Part 20: Seo Jin-seok, the Spring Engine Who Ran Out of Road
Nine starts in the first fifteen rounds, six wins in them, then nine straight matches outside the squad once the back four arrived: what Seo Jin-seok gave Seoul E-Land in the spring, what he has not added, and what his left foot could still offer in the last six.
Part 19 covered Kim Joo-hwan. Part 20 is the young midfielder who held the middle of the park for most of the spring, when Seoul went from a losing start to the top three, and then disappeared from the team sheet when the shape changed in July.
The season in one paragraph
Seo Jin-seok came to Mokdong from Yongin University before the 2025 season, a left-footed midfielder the club sold on his passing and his dead balls, and he said at the time that he wanted to copy Osmar’s calm on the ball. His rookie year brought 18 appearances and one goal, a left-footed free kick at Bucheon in September. This season began with three matches on the bench. Seo Jae-min’s move to Incheon had left a gap in midfield, Euller got hurt at Cheonan in Round 4, and Kim Do-gyun turned to his young players. Seo started nine of the twelve league matches from Round 4 to Round 15, and Seoul won six of them. He never finished one. After the 3-4-3 was retired at Gimhae in July, Yoon Seok-ju took the job beside Park Chang-hwan, and Seo was out of the matchday squad for nine straight matches before a three-minute cameo against Daegu. His line through Seoul’s 26 league matches: 11 appearances, 596 minutes, no goals, no assists, no cards.
By the numbers
| 2025 | 2026 through Round 27 | |
|---|---|---|
| Appearances, starts | 18 | 11, 9 |
| Minutes | 750 | 596 |
| Goals | 1 | 0 |
| Assists | 0 | 0 |
| Yellow cards | 2 | 0 |
| Passes completed, accuracy | 279, 84 percent | |
| Accurate long balls | 17, at 52 percent | |
| Chances created | 8 | |
| Shots, on target | 5, 3 | |
| Tackles, interceptions, recoveries | 8, 10, 30 | |
| Seoul’s record in his starts | W6 D2 L1 |
Passing, defensive and chance numbers are FotMob’s. His longest stint of the season was 80 minutes, at Daegu in March.
What he has done well
He was ready when the door opened. Euller’s hamstring went at Cheonan on March 21, in a match Seoul finished with ten men, and Seo, who had started, was taken off at halftime. A week later he was in the midfield three at Daegu for 80 minutes of a 3-1 win, and a week after that he started the 3-0 over Suwon FC in an all-Korean eleven. Kim Do-gyun’s verdict that afternoon was short: “Seo Jin-seok is the same. He got a lot of match experience last season, so he played well.” MyDaily wrote two days later that he and Son Hyuk-chan had shown “stability no less than a veteran’s” against Daegu and Suwon FC.
He ran. Sports Chosun’s piece on Kim’s young side in April described Park Chang-hwan and Seo harassing the Suwon FC midfield “with crazy amounts of running” as the front three pressed. The manager’s own explanation for the run of results was that using his young players’ “activity and speed” was what worked. Seo’s role in that system was not glamorous. He pushed up to press, and Park Chang-hwan dropped in behind him to cover the back three, a pattern Interfootball picked out in June.
The team won when he played. Nine starts, six wins, two draws, one loss. That is not all his doing, and his minutes were often cut short. But Seo was in the starting midfield, usually beside Park Chang-hwan and at Jeonnam beside Son Hyuk-chan, for the wins over Daegu, Suwon FC, Paju, Gimpo, Seongnam and Jeonnam, the last of them a clean sheet in the Gwangyang heat on May 31.
The left foot still shows up. At Paju on April 11 his ninth-minute through ball put Kang Hyeon-je in behind, a pass Football List called exquisite, although the chance came to nothing. Against Cheongju in June he hit a long-range left-footed drive that Sports Chosun called “powerful,” and went close again before he was withdrawn. His last touch of any note this season was in stoppage time against Daegu, when he carried the ball past a defender on the left and crossed.
Where the same mistakes keep showing up
He does not last. Taken off at halftime at Cheonan, at Paju and against Seongnam, on 55, 60, 56 and 54 minutes in May and June. Some of that was tactical, against a ten-man Seongnam for example. But a central midfielder who is always the first to go is a central midfielder the manager does not trust to see out a result, and that matters when the other options are Yoon Seok-ju and Cho Jun-hyun.
No end product. 596 minutes, eight chances created, no goal and no assist. For a player signed partly for his set-piece delivery, the dead balls have mostly gone to Euller and Carius. In a season in which Seoul have dominated possession and struggled to turn it into goals, a midfielder who does not add them is easier to leave out.
The shape moved past him. When Kim switched to a back four at Gimhae, he said the change was about efficiency, and he noted that Yoon Seok-ju had trained well with the first-choice players during the break. The double pivot, and later the midfield three with Carius, needed a holder who could break up play and hit long passes. Seo was an eight-minute substitute at Gimhae and then missed nine matchday squads in a row. No injury was reported.
His strengths, and what they mean for the last six
He knows the three-man midfield from the inside. Kim went back to a back three against Daegu, with Cho Jun-hyun and Yoon Seok-ju inside, and Park Chang-hwan’s absence has already forced one reshuffle. If the manager needs a second fresh midfielder for the run of three home matches against Gimhae, Jeonnam and Chungnam Asan, Seo is the one who played that role through the spring and won.
Energy off the bench. His Daegu cameo was the job he is most likely to get: fresh legs to press a tiring side and keep the ball in the corners. Gimpo away on October 9 and Yongin away are the kinds of matches where that is worth three minutes, or thirty.
The dead ball. His free-kick goal at Bucheon last September came from exactly the sort of foul Seoul win outside deep blocks every week. If Euller is rested or marked out, a second left-footed option has some value.
The verdict at Round 27
Seo Jin-seok was a useful part of the team that climbed the table in April and May, a young midfielder who ran hard, passed safely and was on the pitch for most of the wins. He was also a player the manager took off early every time, who added nothing in either box, and who fell out of the squad completely once the system changed and a better-suited midfielder came back from surgery. That is a real contribution with a hard ceiling.
Grade so far: C plus. The plus is for the spring, six wins in nine starts at 22. The C is for the empty stat line and for the summer he spent outside the squad.
Match log
| Round | Opponent | Result | Role or Minutes | Goals | Assists | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Cheonan (A) | D 0-0 | Start, 45 | Replaced by Kim Hyun at halftime | ||
| 5 | Daegu (A) | W 3-1 | Start, 80 | Midfield three with Baek Ji-woong and Park Chang-hwan | ||
| 6 | Suwon FC (H) | W 3-0 | Start, 76 | All-Korean eleven, praised by Kim Do-gyun | ||
| 7 | Paju (A) | W 3-1 | Start, 45 | Through ball for Kang Hyeon-je on 9 | ||
| 8 to 9 | Ansan, Hwaseong | Did not play | Unused substitute | |||
| 10 | Gimpo (H) | W 2-1 | Start, 55 | Replaced by Cho Jun-hyun | ||
| 11 | Chungnam Asan (A) | L 0-3 | Did not play | Unused substitute | ||
| 12 | Yongin (H) | D 2-2 | Start, 60 | Replaced by Geraldes | ||
| 13 | Seongnam (H) | W 3-1 | Start, 45 | Kim Oh-kyu on against ten men | ||
| 14 | Jeonnam (A) | W 1-0 | Start, 56 | Clean sheet in the heat | ||
| 15 | Chungbuk Cheongju (H) | L 1-2 | Start, 54 | Long-range left-footed drive | ||
| 16 | Gimhae (A) | W 3-1 | Sub, 8 | Back four debuts | ||
| 18 to 26 | Not in the squad | Nine straight matches | ||||
| 27 | Daegu (H) | W 2-1 | Sub, 86 | On for Baek Ji-woong, one carry and cross |
Statistics from the K League record and the club site, with match detail from the season’s digests and Korean match reports. Part 21 follows.