FatBloke
Niko Kranjcar
He goes on to explain how he deems it essential that his young charges can control the ball with any part of their foot — as well as other parts of their body. This was part of the rationale behind some of the legendary routines his sons went through when they were growing up. One was juggling the ball for three laps of the pitch — one with the left foot, one with the right, then one with both. If they dropped the ball at any point, they had to start again from the first lap. At one point the fierceness of Woong-jung’s instructions raised concerns among one passer-by.
The famous exercise where Son had to keep the ball up in the air for hours on end was another staple related to this principle of using all parts of the body, and left a lasting impression on the now-Spurs forward.
“He gave us four hours of keepy-uppies,” Son said in 2019. “Both of us. After about three hours, I was seeing three balls. The floor was red (because of his bloodshot eyes). I was so tired. And he was so angry. I think this was the best story and we still talk about it when we are all together. Four hours keeping the ball up and you don’t drop it. That’s difficult, no?”
Things don’t appear quite as extreme when The Athletic visits, but the session starts with the 12-year-olds kicking the ball into the air and controlling it. On repeat. For about 15 minutes.
Again, other fundamentals for Woong-jung include his charges not playing as part of a team or even shooting at goal until they’re around 15 years old — as was the case with Son.
“You don’t put your kids who can barely walk into a track and field tournament,” he says by way of explanation. “And it’s the same thing. Because when you’re in a match, first of all you need to be able to control the opponent. If you can’t handle the ball alone, let alone handling the ball with an opponent, what’s the point in sending them to a match?
“The second reason is that for schools, parents and some clubs that have kids playing matches at an early age, it’s not about developing them as players, they care more about winning matches and local competitions — rather than focusing on developing the basic fundamentals.”
For some of the youngsters at the academy, the idea of playing for a team is a genuinely alien concept.
On the shooting ban, Woong-jung says: “Before the age of 15, we don’t tell kids to shoot the ball. Why is that? It will damage their ligaments and joints. Because they’re not yet fully matured yet. It was the same with Heung-min.
“And that’s also why I was against my children participating in club matches at that age, and it’s the same philosophy with the current group.”
Son Heung-min has invested around £11million into his family’s academy project
Woong-jung does not want the mistakes that contributed to the early end of his own playing career repeated.
To succeed at the academy, you need to completely buy into these methods — not to mention be willing to relocate your family to Chuncheon, as there is no on-site accommodation. There are other non-negotiables too.
“This isn’t a playground, and I’m very strict about it,” Woong-jung says. “If you’re going to be here and don’t have a good athletic form and look lazy on the field and around the place, that’s a huge no for me. The other one is attitude in general. Be humble, be respectful to who you’re teaching and who you’re being taught by.
“If those two elements are not there, I will expel them from the academy.”
Woong-jung paints a pretty vivid picture of how he operates, but how do those who have been coached by him feel about it?
Older son Heung-yun played in the German lower leagues with Hamburg side SV Halstenbek-Rellingen but retired young.
“He just had no talent,” is his dad’s honest typically forthright assessment.
Heung-yun says: “When I was being coached by my father, it was a very scary and very difficult atmosphere because he was such a strict coach. But when I coach, I wonder if the students now are able to keep up with it. So I put in a balance of being strict sometimes and sometimes gentle.
“My father could be like that too, but he put a lot of emphasis on focus and how to develop that focus to a high level. The juggling exercise for example was a way to maintain that focus.”
The current crop of youngsters speak highly of Woong-jung, but are clearly pretty scared of him. “Maybe it’s different for other coaches but when I come through the gates, the eyes — they all change,” he says. “They all know. It’s like a drill sergeant has come in. They snap into position, ready to go. I’m still quite tough on them.
“Sometimes my sons were like, ‘You’re like the stepfather, or father-in-law, you’re that tough’. I’m proud of that image.”
Woong-jung and Heung-yun both say, though, that the old fella has softened a little with age.
We get some evidence of this at the end of the session, when he gives the boys warm hugs.
Behind the main training pitches, there is a steep set of stairs — specially installed for the youngsters to run up and down. Conte’s notorious fitness coach Gian Petro Ventrone would surely be impressed.
Over on the other side, behind the 11-a-side pitch, there are big covers to protect the surface from heavy rain and cold in the winter.
While the young players start the session by kicking the ball high up in the air and controlling it, Woong-jung tells a coach one of them should be sent home because of his lack of focus.
The way he shuttles around different areas of the pitch is reminiscent of Conte the previous day, during Spurs’ open training session in Seoul.
Antonio Conte’s intensity reminds Son and his brother of their father (Photo: Getty)
As the youngsters go through their routines, GPS trackers pick up their every move — part of which is geared towards injury prevention and ensuring they are not overburdened. The sessions last up to two hours with short breaks to mimic the length of a match and are intense, and so this is a valid concern.
This feels like another comparison with Conte after Tottenham’s brutal session the previous day.
“I highly respect Coach Conte, and the key reason is his passion,” Woong-jung says. “You can see the way he acts and coaches the players. Some people, when they saw the training and how he changed the training mentality at Tottenham, thought, ‘Isn’t that a bit too much? Isn’t that a bit too extreme?’. But then it was because of that passion that they were able to make it into the Champions League.”
Heung-yun adds: “He likes Conte as a coach and the way Conte wants the players to focus and have the right mentality and physicality for training. It reminds him of training with our father.”
Woong-jung laughs off any comparisons with Conte — and the idea that he would be able to beat the former Juventus and Italy midfielder in a race.
But everything he does during the session is at a brisk pace. “How dare you walk?” he says to one of the players.
In general, the parents of these children — many of whom are at the session — don’t seem to mind Woong-jung’s forthrightness. They say that they see his more approachable manner with the players at the end of the session, so know that it’s coming from a good place. He is also able to rein it in when needs be — holding back from one player who appears on the verge of tears.
The point is made as well that cultural differences may make his behaviour feel a little less extreme to a Korean audience. Even if he appears to one observer with Western points of reference “like a footballing Gordon Ramsay”.
Heung-yun meanwhile acts more as the good cop of the pair, encouraging the players and at one point impressing them with a rabona pass.
Woong-jung may be the director of the academy, a role normally associated with sitting behind a desk, but he seems to do more running than most of the players.
After urging the players to be quicker with their rondos, the group is split into two. Woong-jung plays as a centre-back for one side, bossing the game from there and at one point putting up an imaginary flag to disallow a goal after a youngster had snuck in behind him to score. It looked borderline offside at best. “His team never loses,” says one of his colleagues, laughing.
Woong-jung also has no compunction about using skills to dribble his way past the opposition players. There’s a hint of the Competitive Dad character from the 1990s sketch comedy series The Fast Show or, for older readers, the late Brian Glover as the PE teacher in 1969 movie Kes.
Woong-jung takes part in a training session with the academy pupils (Photo: Getty)
(continued...)
The famous exercise where Son had to keep the ball up in the air for hours on end was another staple related to this principle of using all parts of the body, and left a lasting impression on the now-Spurs forward.
“He gave us four hours of keepy-uppies,” Son said in 2019. “Both of us. After about three hours, I was seeing three balls. The floor was red (because of his bloodshot eyes). I was so tired. And he was so angry. I think this was the best story and we still talk about it when we are all together. Four hours keeping the ball up and you don’t drop it. That’s difficult, no?”
Things don’t appear quite as extreme when The Athletic visits, but the session starts with the 12-year-olds kicking the ball into the air and controlling it. On repeat. For about 15 minutes.
Again, other fundamentals for Woong-jung include his charges not playing as part of a team or even shooting at goal until they’re around 15 years old — as was the case with Son.
“You don’t put your kids who can barely walk into a track and field tournament,” he says by way of explanation. “And it’s the same thing. Because when you’re in a match, first of all you need to be able to control the opponent. If you can’t handle the ball alone, let alone handling the ball with an opponent, what’s the point in sending them to a match?
“The second reason is that for schools, parents and some clubs that have kids playing matches at an early age, it’s not about developing them as players, they care more about winning matches and local competitions — rather than focusing on developing the basic fundamentals.”
For some of the youngsters at the academy, the idea of playing for a team is a genuinely alien concept.
On the shooting ban, Woong-jung says: “Before the age of 15, we don’t tell kids to shoot the ball. Why is that? It will damage their ligaments and joints. Because they’re not yet fully matured yet. It was the same with Heung-min.
“And that’s also why I was against my children participating in club matches at that age, and it’s the same philosophy with the current group.”
Son Heung-min has invested around £11million into his family’s academy project
Woong-jung does not want the mistakes that contributed to the early end of his own playing career repeated.
To succeed at the academy, you need to completely buy into these methods — not to mention be willing to relocate your family to Chuncheon, as there is no on-site accommodation. There are other non-negotiables too.
“This isn’t a playground, and I’m very strict about it,” Woong-jung says. “If you’re going to be here and don’t have a good athletic form and look lazy on the field and around the place, that’s a huge no for me. The other one is attitude in general. Be humble, be respectful to who you’re teaching and who you’re being taught by.
“If those two elements are not there, I will expel them from the academy.”
Woong-jung paints a pretty vivid picture of how he operates, but how do those who have been coached by him feel about it?
Older son Heung-yun played in the German lower leagues with Hamburg side SV Halstenbek-Rellingen but retired young.
“He just had no talent,” is his dad’s honest typically forthright assessment.
Heung-yun says: “When I was being coached by my father, it was a very scary and very difficult atmosphere because he was such a strict coach. But when I coach, I wonder if the students now are able to keep up with it. So I put in a balance of being strict sometimes and sometimes gentle.
“My father could be like that too, but he put a lot of emphasis on focus and how to develop that focus to a high level. The juggling exercise for example was a way to maintain that focus.”
The current crop of youngsters speak highly of Woong-jung, but are clearly pretty scared of him. “Maybe it’s different for other coaches but when I come through the gates, the eyes — they all change,” he says. “They all know. It’s like a drill sergeant has come in. They snap into position, ready to go. I’m still quite tough on them.
“Sometimes my sons were like, ‘You’re like the stepfather, or father-in-law, you’re that tough’. I’m proud of that image.”
Woong-jung and Heung-yun both say, though, that the old fella has softened a little with age.
We get some evidence of this at the end of the session, when he gives the boys warm hugs.
Behind the main training pitches, there is a steep set of stairs — specially installed for the youngsters to run up and down. Conte’s notorious fitness coach Gian Petro Ventrone would surely be impressed.
Over on the other side, behind the 11-a-side pitch, there are big covers to protect the surface from heavy rain and cold in the winter.
While the young players start the session by kicking the ball high up in the air and controlling it, Woong-jung tells a coach one of them should be sent home because of his lack of focus.
The way he shuttles around different areas of the pitch is reminiscent of Conte the previous day, during Spurs’ open training session in Seoul.
Antonio Conte’s intensity reminds Son and his brother of their father (Photo: Getty)
As the youngsters go through their routines, GPS trackers pick up their every move — part of which is geared towards injury prevention and ensuring they are not overburdened. The sessions last up to two hours with short breaks to mimic the length of a match and are intense, and so this is a valid concern.
This feels like another comparison with Conte after Tottenham’s brutal session the previous day.
“I highly respect Coach Conte, and the key reason is his passion,” Woong-jung says. “You can see the way he acts and coaches the players. Some people, when they saw the training and how he changed the training mentality at Tottenham, thought, ‘Isn’t that a bit too much? Isn’t that a bit too extreme?’. But then it was because of that passion that they were able to make it into the Champions League.”
Heung-yun adds: “He likes Conte as a coach and the way Conte wants the players to focus and have the right mentality and physicality for training. It reminds him of training with our father.”
Woong-jung laughs off any comparisons with Conte — and the idea that he would be able to beat the former Juventus and Italy midfielder in a race.
But everything he does during the session is at a brisk pace. “How dare you walk?” he says to one of the players.
In general, the parents of these children — many of whom are at the session — don’t seem to mind Woong-jung’s forthrightness. They say that they see his more approachable manner with the players at the end of the session, so know that it’s coming from a good place. He is also able to rein it in when needs be — holding back from one player who appears on the verge of tears.
The point is made as well that cultural differences may make his behaviour feel a little less extreme to a Korean audience. Even if he appears to one observer with Western points of reference “like a footballing Gordon Ramsay”.
Heung-yun meanwhile acts more as the good cop of the pair, encouraging the players and at one point impressing them with a rabona pass.
Woong-jung may be the director of the academy, a role normally associated with sitting behind a desk, but he seems to do more running than most of the players.
After urging the players to be quicker with their rondos, the group is split into two. Woong-jung plays as a centre-back for one side, bossing the game from there and at one point putting up an imaginary flag to disallow a goal after a youngster had snuck in behind him to score. It looked borderline offside at best. “His team never loses,” says one of his colleagues, laughing.
Woong-jung also has no compunction about using skills to dribble his way past the opposition players. There’s a hint of the Competitive Dad character from the 1990s sketch comedy series The Fast Show or, for older readers, the late Brian Glover as the PE teacher in 1969 movie Kes.
Woong-jung takes part in a training session with the academy pupils (Photo: Getty)
(continued...)
