What a viewIn Netflix series The Gentlemen’s League 2, soccer amateurs from other sports in South Korea chase glory
- South Korean stars of other sports such as tennis player Kwon Soon-woo and mixed martial artist Kim Dong-hyun join form a soccer team
- Their goal is to win a national amateur competition, but time is running out and they look to recruit some late-season additions to achieve it
Compared with Amazon Prime’s All or Nothing: Manchester City, which followed the serial English Premier League champions through a season of high-stakes footballing drama, The Gentlemen’s League 2 (Netflix) is decidedly low-key: rag-tag amateurs the Eojjeoda Avengers bringing their own brand of down-home charm to the game of soccer.
The team, assembled from scratch for the purposes of winning a nationwide competition in South Korea, is drawn from athletes accomplished in sports other than football.
After an early-episodes, sort of improvised “Korea’s Got Talent” audition process in the studio, featuring Nordic combined skier Park Je-un, ssireum wrestler Park Jung-woo, speed skater Lee Jung-su, tennis player Kwon Soon-woo, mixed martial artist Kim Dong-hyun, triathlete Heo Min-ho, basketball player Kim Tae-sul and more, the Avengers’ squad was put together and matches organised around the country.
Despite having the requisite footballing skills, the Avengers have discovered it’s a case of win some, but lose many more. Worse, now that they are approaching the climax of a season in which the objective is to improve on last year’s runners-up spot, the team has suddenly found itself needing yet more players.
While additional well-known faces try out for the side, perhaps its most celebrated representative is on the touchline: manager Ahn Jung-hwan. A former striker, Ahn, 46, achieved instant national hero status in 2002 when he dumped Italy out of the World Cup with his “golden goal”.
No matter that the match officiating was allegedly so biased towards South Korea, the co-host (with Japan) of the tournament, that it almost caused a diplomatic incident, or that Ahn, ironically on the payroll of Italian club Perugia at the time, was subsequently sacked. He should dust off his boots: the Avengers need him.
