Korea: Ahn Jung-Hwan

In World Cup year, and in his quest for career advancement, the golden boy of Korean football has played a worrying lack of football.

Ahn Jung-Hwan, a 25-year-old midfielder, joined Serie A team Perugia two years ago following the same path as Japan’s Hidetoshi Nakata.

Nakata’s spell there led to Roma making him a major signing in the 1999-2000 winter break, but Ahn’s career has floundered after a start full of eastern promise.

In the 2000-01 season, he scored four goals in 15 games, but this season he has been a bench-warmer with starts in cup matches being his salvation.

Korea coach Guus Hiddink is concerned his star man may not be ready for the World Cup and admits he may not hand him the key playmaker’s role.

‘‘Ahn is one of the candidates, but he needs to make a stronger effort than the others,’’ the Dutchman warned.

‘‘No matter how good a player he is, it could be a problem that he is not a starting player in his team as that is important in maintaining good match sense as well as good physical condition.’’

The music-loving midfielder with the Samurai looks put in a series of consistently impressive performances for K League club Pukan Icons to win his ticket to Italy.

‘Jung-Hwani’, as the Italians call him, is not the only Europe-based player who will be lining up with Korea next summer.

He is likely to start alongside Eintracht Frankfurt defender Sim Jae-Won and Anderlecht striker Seol Ki-Hyun in Hiddink’s starting XI.

But it is Seoul-born Ahn, with his occasionally outrageous skills, who has captured the imagination of the public and made himself the natural successor to Korea’s superstar of the last 10 years, defender Hong Myung-Bo.

By combining the trademark speed and dynamism of the Korean brand of football with an ease on the ball and eye for goal, Ahn should bring a different element to Hiddink’s team.

And in the same way that Kazuyoshi Miura paved the way for a number of Japanese exports to Italy when he joined Genoa in 1994, Ahn was seen as a trailblazer for all of Korea’s professionals.

But all the hype, induced by his spectacular performances, has not been without its pitfalls.

Modest Ahn was upset by a headline which claimed he had promised to become a better player than Nakata within six months of moving to Italy.

His every word is scrutinised in the Korean press, often twisted, and his actions on the field and in training are followed closely by a pack of Italy-based Korean soccer journalists charged solely with monitoring his progress.

This summer, Korea will be appearing in their sixth finals but they have so far failed to claim a single win.

Nakata impressed for Japan at the last World Cup, but no Korean has yet made any weighty impact.

For many fans outside the country, the most famous Korean player remains the North’s Park Seung-Jin who inspired the Asian side to a shock 3-0 lead over Eusebio’s Portugal in 1966.

The Portuguese rallied to win that game 5-3 and ensure Park’s flirtation with glory was all too brief in North Korea’s only ever World Cup appearance.

Ahn now has the chance to show Perugia, Hiddink, and his countrymen that he is much more than a flash in the pan, and if the co-hosts are to progress you feel he cannot afford to waste it.