Crisis, but not collapse. Two promoted teams, Gwangju FC and Daejeon Hana Citizen, are cruising toward their goal of staying in the K League 1.
Recently, Gwangju and Daejeon have faced a crisis. Gwangju has gone four games without a win, drawing three and losing one. Daejeon’s winless streak is even longer. They’ve gone five draws and one loss in six games. Neither team had many losses, but the lack of wins was depressing. Gwangju had the added complication of poor training facilities due to the heavy rains in the Honam region. Daejeon was also suffering from too many draws and coach Lee Min-sung was getting worried. The battle for the mid-table in the K League 1 this season was “epic,” and Gwangju and Daejeon felt like they were walking on thin ice.
In the crucial 24th round, with only one point separating them, Gwangju and Daejeon broke their winless streak. Gwangju earned a valuable three points with a 1-0 win away to Suwon FC. Daejeon held off Daegu FC at home.
With this round of wins, both teams entered the Final A standings side by side. Gwangju is fifth with 34 points and Daejeon is sixth with 33 points. While there’s not much of a gap between them and seventh-place Daegu and eighth-place Incheon United (both 33 points), it’s certainly a psychologically reassuring win.
More importantly, it’s encouraging that the team is slowly improving its chances of staying in the K League 1. In the current K League 1, the race for the bottom three teams is relatively clear. There is a 10-point gap between 9th-place Jeju United (30 points) and 10th-place Suwon FC (20 points). In fact, Jeju is far from relegation. The likes of 11th-place Suwon Samsung (18 points) and last-place Gangwon FC (16 points) are further away. At this rate, neither Gwangju nor Daejeon are going to fall into the relegation zone easily. 스포츠토토
In 24 games, Gwangju has an average of 1.41 points. Daejeon has 1.37 points. With 14 games to go, it’s unlikely that either team will be able to overtake the other at this pace.
If anything, Gwangju and Daejeon should both be aiming for Final A in the regular round. As long as they can maintain their current positions through nine games, they’ll be able to rest easy going into the final round. Of course, you can never be 100% sure, but relegation is not an option given the way these two teams have turned their fortunes around this season with timely wins whenever their winless streaks got longer.