K-Sports highlights with Jason Lee

Korea is currently hosting some exciting soccer games with top notch European teams, and in baseball, the NC Dinos might NOT move to a new stadium after all. For more in the world of K-sports we are joined by our sportscaster Jason Lee in the studio who will bring us all the highlights. Hello Jason!

Q1. Every summer, Korea tends to host some big name European soccer teams and yesterday Newcastle United played a team of K-League All-Stars in Suwon. How did that go?

Well, would you believe the K-League All-Stars defeated the Premier League powerhouse 1-0.

It was just an exhibition game so let me stress that it is different in terms of tackles and players wanting to avoid injury first and foremost and you'll also probably see player trying to do more flashy stuff or perhaps even try new moves they've been practicing so let's not get carried away with the result But, still, the K-Leaguers who played in the game should feel very proud of the result and for the most part playing toe to toe with one of the top teams in the world.

Kim Jin-Gyu scored the game's lone goal in the 36th minute as he broke in from the left side.

He showed great poise in finishing from in close and then they had a great celebration with Kim Jin-Gyu playing the role of a big game fish being caught by his other teammates.

Also of note is that Park Seung-soo did play in the game as he entered the game in the 82nd minute for Newcastle.

And who's Park Seung-Soo you might wonder. He's an 18 year old phenom that signed with Newcastle just last week.

At 16 years old he was the youngest K-Leaguer ever as he signed a semi-pro contract with Suwon Samsung Bluewings a couple years back.

He usually plays right wing, but hasn't really been a goal scorer so far with just goal for Suwon in 25 games last season.

And of course as a former Suwon player, he was actually playing last night in front of his former home fans.

I might add that he definitely flashed some talent in the short time he played as well.

Q2. I understand there are a bunch of other big matches that soccer fans in Korea can check out, including Barcelona visiting Seoul World Cup stadium tonight to take on FC Seoul. Can you give us the details on that game and the others to come.

Yes, Barcelona visits Seoul tonight they feature Robert Lewandowski, and Raphinha as their poster boys now and local fans will have a chance to get an up close look at them tonight.

Also at Seoul's World Cup Stadium on Sunday night, Tottenham Hotspur will play Newcastle United at 8pm.

Of course Tottenham rosters both Son Heung-Min and Yang Min-Hyeok and you would think that both should be fan favourites during the contest.

It would be really fun to see both Yang Min-Hyeok and Park Seung-soo play against each other.

Yang is 1 year older and has had an extra 7 months with his team, but I think these guys will be compared to each other in terms of their progress as they're both teenagers with top English Premier League teams.

And one more match in Korea will take place Monday in Daegu where Barcelona will face Daegu FC also at 8pm.

This is great to see that soccer fans in the south can also get a chance to see some of these top talents visiting Korea.

Q3. You talked before about the possibility of the NC Dinos possibly leaving their home in Changwon, but it seems like the local government is stepping up to keep the team in the southeastern city.

Yes, you might remember I had mentioned Ulsan, Kimhae and Yangsan and possible places they could leave to basically other municipalities near their current fan base.

Last week it was discovered that Seongnam city, just below Seoul was trying to woo the Dinos.

And this was very interesting for a few reasons first off NC, the sponsor company for the team is based in Pangyo which is a part of Seongnam City so it would actually make a lot of sense because they could rally their employees and clients to support the team in their new destination.

Now Seongnam doesn't have a professional team, but the city was willing to upgrade a stadium to make it league appropriate for the KBO.

So after all this information came out, Changwon scrambled to do what they could to keep the team in Changwon and it looks like that's what's going to happen.

Changwon has agreed to invest 10-billion won to expand an extra 2,000 seats into the stadium.

They're also going to expand their merchandise store, they're going to improve their scoreboard and even add parking for the Masan Stadium for their Futures team.

The city is also working with the provincial government to add shuttle busses and other infrastructure to make it easier for fans to get to and from games.

Q4. Speaking of the NC Dinos, I understand that they were involved in a 6 player trade with the Kia Tigers this week.

Do give us the juicy details.

Yes, this is a classic win-win deal where one team needed hitting, while the other needed pitching and both teams had extra depth to part with in order to improve their team overall.

Kia sends: outfielders Choi Won-Jun and Lee Woo-Sung along with infielder Hong Jong-Pyo for: NC pitchers Han Jae-Seung and Kim Si-Hoon the Dinos also send infielder Jeong Hyun-Chang to Kia.

Choi Won-Jun is probably the biggest name in the deal. He's been a starting outfielder for both of Kia's last 2 Korean Series titles last year and 2017.

He's struggled a bit this year hitting.225 so maybe a change of scenery will get him back on track.

Kia gets a lot younger in the deal adding Han Jae-Seung, who's just 23 years old.

He's more of a middle reliever so far in his career and his numbers have been very average unfortunately for the Kia bullpen, they haven't even been average so he should be an improvement to what they have.

Jeong Hyun-Chang seems to be a lottery ticket for Kia as he's a 19 year old without a lot of experience.

He should be spending most of this season in the future's league and my guess is the team's just expecting him to be a development project.

Q5. Some bad news in Major League Baseball as I heard both Kim Hye-Seong and Kim Ha-Seong have suffered injuries that will keep them out for a couple of weeks ?

Yes, this is very unfortunate to say the least let's start with Kim Ha-Seong over in Tampa Bay.

He's only played 10 games so far this season after starting the year on the Injured List after off-season shoulder surgery.

He's had issues with his calf as well, but it's actually strained lower back that knocked him out this time.

The last game he played was back on July 21st so he'll actually be eligible to be reinstated this weekend if he's healthy enough to go.

It's possible they could send him down to AAA for a rehab assignment before activating him off the injured list, but if he's feeling good enough it's possible they just let him play.

As for Kim Hye-Seong, he's dealing with a sore left shoulder (so not his throwing shoulder) and he's been dealing with this for over a week now, but he's just been trying to play through it.

The team finally decided it would be best to just shut him down for a bit so he got an injection in the shoulder with the hopes that it'll improve over the next week and perhaps he could return when first eligible August 11.

Kim was hitting.302 with a pair of home runs and he's been 12 for 12 in stolen base attempts this season so he's definitely a player the Dodger want in their line up as soon as possible.

Missing a number of games is expected to hurt the respective teams, but recovery is the priority.

Thank you Jason for all the updates. Have a great rest of the week.

Thank you Bella as always. See you back tomorrow.