Season Review, Part 11: Son Hyuk-chan, the Former Ball Boy One Card From a Ban

Part 10 was Cho Jun-hyun, whose first professional goal opened the scoring against Daegu. Part 11 is the defender who came on for the last half hour of that match and was booked three minutes later, his fourth yellow card of the season. He is also the club’s own product in a way nobody else in the squad is, and the story of his year is a young player learning what a promotion race asks of a substitute.

The season in one paragraph

Son Hyuk-chan joined Seoul E-Land’s under-12 side in 2016, was a ball boy, went through the under-15 and under-18 teams, spent two years at Yongin University as a winger, and in January 2025 became the first player in club history to reach the first team through every age group. He played once in the league last year, a surprise start against Jeonnam that lasted about 15 minutes. This season he was not in the squad for the first four rounds, then started seven of the eight matches from Round 5 to Round 12, in a back four at Daegu and at left wing-back and left back after that. From mid-May he became a substitute, dropped out of the squad for most of the summer, and was sent off in the Korea Cup defeat to a third-tier side in July. He has come back as the halftime replacement on the left. Through Round 27 he has 16 appearances, 8 starts and 1,160 minutes in Seoul’s 26 league matches, no goals and no assists, and his fingerprints on three Seoul goals that were credited to someone else. He also has four yellow cards, and the fifth brings a one-match ban.

By the numbers

	2025	2026 through Round 27
Appearances, starts	1, 1	16, 8
Minutes	about 15	1,160
Goals	0	0
Assists	0	0
Chances created		21 (88th percentile among the division’s players in his positions)
Big chances created		2
Successful crosses		24, at 26.4 percent (97th percentile for volume)
Pass accuracy		83.0 percent (411 completed)
Long balls completed		36, at 64.3 percent
Tackles, interceptions		13, 10
Clearances		27
Aerial duels won		11 of 19
Duels won		41, at 55.4 percent
Times dribbled past		2
Yellow cards		4 (one from a ban)

Advanced numbers are from the data providers and cover 999 minutes, their count without stoppage time.

What he has done well

He crosses with both feet. Son is naturally right-footed. His father made him train his left from the first grade of elementary school, and he told Sports Seoul in April that “now I think my left is actually more dangerous.” He takes corners with either foot, which lets Kim Do-gyun choose inswing or outswing from the same side without changing the taker. Twenty-four successful crosses in under a thousand minutes of playing time puts him near the top of the division for volume. Against Suwon FC in April his free kick found Osmar, whose header hit the post and who scored the rebound. Against Suwon Samsung in September his corner on 84 minutes gave Kim Oh-kyu a free header that went wide of the far post.

He has made goals that are not his on paper. The opener at Ansan in April came when Euller’s cross hit Im Ji-min as the Ansan defender went up with Son at the far post; it was recorded as an own goal. The winner at Jeonnam on May 31, the goal that took Seoul second, started with him: on the counter in the 88th minute his pass found Park Chang-hwan, whose backheel was blocked, and Carius swept in the loose ball. The Osmar goal against Suwon FC was his delivery too. None of the three is an assist. All three are in the table.

He does his homework. His best defensive afternoons came in his first two starts. At Daegu in March he shut down Seraphim. Against Suwon FC a week later he controlled their right side for 90 minutes in a 3-0 win. “If you defend without preparing, of course it is hard,” he said afterward. “Before a match I always look at how the opposing players play.” Kim Do-gyun’s verdict that day was measured: “He did his job without much trouble. I would like him to ride the flow a little better and have more confidence. I hope he becomes a player who can compete.” He was typically modest about it himself, crediting the older players around him and saying he felt he had done nothing.

He fills whatever gap there is. Back four, back three, left wing-back, left of midfield. He came on for Osmar after 19 minutes against Seongnam and saw out a 3-1 win. He has been the halftime change five times, and against Ansan in August he came on with Park Jae-yong at the break and Seoul turned a deficit into a 3-1 win. When Bae Seo-jun has come off at left back, it has been Son who replaced him, at Paju and against Suwon Samsung. For a club that has played a back three and a back four in the same season, sometimes in the same match, that flexibility is worth a squad place on its own.

Where the same mistakes keep showing up

The ball over his head. The worst moment of his season came in the first minute of stoppage time against Chungbuk Cheongju in June. With the score 1-1, a long ball went over the Seoul defense toward Bandeira, Son chased and lost him, and Bandeira’s pass gave Garcia the winner and Cheongju their first win of the season. Star News said he had “again failed to deal properly with the long ball.” It was unfair to the rest of his night, which included a surging run and low cross, a shot and a well-timed block of a cutback, but it is the pattern opponents will look for. He is 175 centimeters, and he is more comfortable facing a winger than turning to chase one.

The cards. Four yellow cards in 1,160 minutes, three of them in the space of four matches in May (Gimpo, Yongin, Seongnam) and the fourth against Daegu three minutes after he came on. Then there is the Korea Cup. On July 15 at Ulsan, against the K3 side Ulsan Citizen, he was sent off at the end of normal time with the score 2-2, and Seoul lost 4-2 in extra time, the worst result of the season. The data providers put his booking rate in the bottom tenth of the division.

He lost the shirt and has not won it back. Seven starts in eight matches in the spring, one start since. Out of the squad at Gimhae, at Suwon FC, at Busan and at Hwaseong. Bae Seo-jun has had most of the left-back starts since the summer, and Oh In-pyo and Kim Joo-hwan compete with him on the other side and as wing-backs. The output that would force a change is not there yet either: no goals or assists, and a cross accuracy of about one in four.

His strengths, and what they mean for the last six

Dead balls against deep blocks. Kim Do-gyun has said the matches against promotion rivals are all played and that the problem now is goals, which are the first tiebreaker in a race Seoul trail on goals scored. Gimpo, Gimhae, Yongin, Jeonnam, Chungnam Asan and Gyeongnam will mostly sit in. A left-sided player who can put in a corner with either foot, on a team that wants Osmar, Baek Ji-woong, Park Jae-yong and Caio attacking set pieces, is a better bench option in those matches than his numbers suggest.

The second-half left side. Before Daegu the manager said he planned to change the left side at halftime for fitness. Bae Seo-jun has been replaced at the break twice in the last five matches, and both times it was Son who came on. Expect more of that, and expect the substitution earlier if Seoul are chasing a goal.

Managing the fifth yellow. One more booking and he misses the following match, and the accumulation carries into the playoffs. Gimpo away on October 9 is first, and he was booked in the home match against Gimpo in May. For a player whose role is to come on and run at tired full backs, that is a real constraint, and it is one he can control.

The identity. He told Sportal Korea after his debut that he wanted to score quickly and make a heart sign to the fans. The goal has not come. But he also said in April, when asked about competing for a place, that “whether I play or not, I only think about Seoul E-Land’s promotion,” and that as a boy he had been frustrated watching the club struggle. He is the only player in the squad who came through all of its youth teams. That will matter at Mokdong, with three home matches left.

The verdict at Round 27

A useful squad defender who had a good spring, a bad June night against Cheongju and a worse one in the cup, and who has spent the second half of the season as the left side’s halftime option. He has done more for Seoul’s goal tally than an empty assist column shows, and less to keep his place than the start of the season promised.

Grade so far: B minus. The grade is for the spring starts, the deliveries that led to three goals and a versatility the manager keeps using. It stops short of a B because of the long ball at Cheongju, the Korea Cup dismissal and four yellow cards in a bench role.

Match log

Round	Opponent	Result	Role or Minutes	Goals	Assists	Note
5	Daegu (A)	W 3-1	Start, 71			Marked Seraphim
6	Suwon FC (H)	W 3-0	Start, 90			Free kick for Osmar’s goal
7	Paju (A)	W 3-1	Start, 45			Off at halftime
8	Ansan (A)	W 2-0	Start, 84			Challenge forced the Im Ji-min own goal
9	Hwaseong (H)	L 1-2	Start, 90
10	Gimpo (H)	W 2-1	Start, 90			Booked
11	Chungnam Asan (A)	L 0-3	Sub, halftime
12	Yongin (H)	D 2-2	Start, 90			Booked
13	Seongnam (H)	W 3-1	Sub, 19th minute			On for the injured Osmar; booked
14	Jeonnam (A)	W 1-0	Sub, 27			His pass started Carius’s winner
15	Chungbuk Cheongju (H)	L 1-2	Sub, halftime			Lost Bandeira for the stoppage-time winner
19	Cheonan (H)	W 4-3	Unused sub
22	Ansan (H)	W 3-1	Sub, halftime			On with Park Jae-yong in the comeback
23	Paju (H)	D 1-1	Sub, halftime			On for Bae Seo-jun
24	Seongnam (A)	D 1-1	Start, 90			Left back
25	Chungbuk Cheongju (A)	W 2-0	Unused sub
26	Suwon Samsung (H)	L 0-1	Sub, halftime			Corner for Kim Oh-kyu’s free header
27	Daegu (H)	W 2-1	Sub, 61st minute			Fourth yellow, one from a ban

Not in the squad for Rounds 1 to 4, 16, 18, 20 and 21.

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 8 opener at Ansan was officially an own goal by Im Ji-min rather than Son’s header, the Round 14 winner at Jeonnam began with his pass rather than Euller’s, and his Round 27 booking was his fourth, which leaves him one yellow card from a ban. Part 12 follows.