FC Seoul

visits to Gyeongbokgung Palace, Lotte World Tower, and Bukchon Hanok Village.

Today, he spends many weekend afternoons in the northern stands of Seoul World Cup Stadium in western Seoul, cheering on professional football club FC Seoul as a season ticket holder.

He also documents the experience for his audience on YouTube and Instagram.

Tourist landmarks give you a look at Korea's culture, but sports let you experience its living, breathing local culture.

People say, I would like to come back here for sure.

I'm not sure they say that about tourist attractions.

His transformation from a casual tourist into a devoted FC Seoul fan reflects a broader shift in Korea's tourism landscape, as more international visitors and foreign residents turn to professional sports to experience local culture beyond conventional tourist attractions.

Korea's professional sports leagues drew record crowds in 2025, with the KBO recording 12,312,519 spectators and the K League attracting 3,486,345.

Victory had a good week ahead.

the week before last in beating FC Seoul.

That's a big scalp at home.

So before we sort of pick over the carcass of the last week, which has become a pretty rancid carcass pretty quickly, we should just keep that in the back of our minds that it hasn't been a total disaster, but it was a really difficult week.

Well, the victory situation, they lost to Persib Bandung away in Indonesia.

They play them at home this week.

But the great worry is FC Seoul have now wrapped up the Korean League.

So Seoul sent their essential reserve team, rotated players, lots of teenagers to Australia.

They were lacking against South Melbourne in the final.

Even the 3-0 win against FC Seoul in the Champions League was But Sol played a team that didn't have any players from their league fixture the weekend before.

And their defense was all over the place.

And Victory failed to punish them before halftime.

Yeah, moving on to the East region.

Melbourne victory with a fantastic, fantastic 3-0 win against FC Seoul.

Love to see it.

And then Persib, Bandung of Indonesia with a 1-0 win against Vietel.

Kuching, Kichi a 1-1 drop balanced as all things should be very very happy with that result Kenta what do you think?

We'll start with Gangwon because I said when we were talking about ACL Elite Korean teams that the other Korean teams were doing well.

That was exclusively to ACL Elite because the ACL2 representative and FC Seoul and Gangwon FC have been horrific.

So they're in the same boat as Pohang.

This is probably the hardest one.

By the time we get to FC Seoul, their league would have been done and dusted.

As well.

They'll play their best team.

And coming up on in-depth news analysis, we'll discuss the Bank of Korea's recent decision of keeping its policy rate at 3% and the recent recovery of the South Korean won.

Then for Sports Roundup, we'll take a look at FC Seoul's 2026 championship run and the latest in the KBO postseason.

All that and more on today's Korea 24.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made a surprise one-day trip to China over the weekend.

Daniel, as always, thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having me.

Today, we're starting our sports roundup with a compilation of sounds from FC Seoul's match against Gangwon FC last Saturday, which secured FC Seoul the top spot in the 2026 season of K-League 1, the highest level of the South Korean football league system.

You can hear the fans chanting the coach's name, Kim Ki-dong, there as well.

FC Seoul did not win the game.

FC Seoul won something far greater.

A 1-1 draw against Gangwon FC was enough to confirm FC Seoul as the 2026 K-League 1 champions, ending a 10-year wait and delivering the 7th league title in the club's history.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another edition of Into the Net FC.

My name is Alex Alcazaz, and I'm also known as the Bear of Texas.

Moon Seon Min placed FC Seoul ahead.

Kang Jong-ho answered for Gangwon.

But when the final whistle arrived, the score became secondary.

I don't know if all the players can speak the same, but this is, yeah, for me, personally, they were very kind, very pushing.

However, I would say I always, always loved to play games, FC Seoul against Urawa, because for me, their fans are incredible, or were, I don't know now, these days, but I played the biggest games, the best games.

These matches were always so fun to play.

Big stadium, full stadium, on stop, chanting, supporting.

picture with my son, with this, or sign me this, sign me that.

Unless there is some story with someone.

There is one guy, for example, who made this amazing flag of my face when I used to play for FC Seoul.

It was a huge, huge flag.

And we had a Champions League game and we had a great bounce back within the group that shows great resilience.

It shows depth in the squad that we could bounce back and get a great result against FC Seoul in the Champions League.

And then we started the campaign in the A-League.

So we've obviously got the first home game of the season coming up against City in the Derby.

FC Seoul moved closer to becoming champions of South Korea.

But they will be frustrated after surrendering the lead twice in a two-all draw against Gimcheon Sangmu.

Patrick Klimala scored both goals for FC Seoul.

Gimcheon responded through two penalties converted by Lee Sanghoon and Kim Il-gon.

For Seoul...

Heavy rain created difficult playing conditions at Seoul World Cup Stadium.

The wet surface made possession difficult and both teams spent the opening stages fighting for control.

FC Seoul broke through in the 22nd minute.