WK League News

Yoo Youngsil’s Seoul City Amazones face a tough run of fixtures this summer as their injury crisis continues, with an already depleted squad now left without a goalkeeper for at least the next few weeks. Some fans expressed concern at the start of the season when the Amazones named just two keepers in their 2026 roster, and their worst fears have now come true as Kim Jungmi and Woo Seobin are both unavailable.

After Choi Yeseul’s retirement and Park Hyunjin’s move to Suwon FC at the start of the season, up-and-coming talent Woo Seobin was the only goalkeeper remaining on the books at Seoul. Despite being a WK League debutante, Woo’s proven talent and international experience at youth level meant she was thrown in at the deep end last year, making her first appearance for Seoul in Round 1 of the 2025 WK League. She went on to play regularly for the Amazones throughout the season, with her excellent performance earning her a spot in Shin Sangwoo’s South Korea squad. She also became the first goalkeeper to receive the Best New Player accolade at the annual KWFF WK League awards.

Ahead of the 2026 league season, Woo was joined at City by veteran Kim Jungmi, who made her debut for South Korea in 2003, before Woo was even born. Kim’s move to Seoul was a shock to many WK League followers who expected her to stay at Incheon Hyundai, her club for 21 years, until retirement.

With limited resources at their disposal, the staff at Seoul City decided not to add a third goalkeeper to their squad, preferring to maximise the number of field players instead. The club started the season with just 21 players registered, including the two goalkeepers, but with Baek Dohye and Lee Ye-eun still rehabilitating long-term injuries, manager Yoo was left with very limited options for her starting lineup from the outset.

In fact, efforts to make best use of the precariously thin squad saw Woo Seobin playing as a striker earlier in the season, just weeks after earning her first full international cap between the sticks at the 2026 AFC Women’s Asian Cup. However, in May, while training in an outfield position, Woo picked up an ankle injury that required surgery, leaving her out of action until the end of August, and leaving Seoul with just one available goalkeeper.

The news of Woo’s injury angered some supporters who felt that a goalkeeper, especially the team’s only reserve goalkeeper, should not have been subjected to the increased risk of training in an outfield position. Still, even a keeper playing and training in goal is not free of risk, a fact now made painfully clear to Seoul and their supporters after it emerged that Kim Jungmi had picked up an elbow injury. She is expected to be unavailable for at least three weeks. Even with a speedy recovery, the Amazones will be keeper-less for several upcoming WK League matches.

The most immediate challenge facing Seoul City was Friday evening’s Round 15 clash with runaway league leaders Suwon FC. According to sport news site Sportsnius, manager Yoo’s preference would have been to put defender Lee Ye-eun in goal, but Lee is still “unable to jump” following an Achilles tendon injury sustained last year, and the risk of re-injury was deemed too high. Despite the manager’s reluctance to lose one of her best field players, it was Kim Minji who stepped up to don the gloves on Friday.

The club was then faced with another pressing issue, if a somewhat more trivial one: they didn’t have a goalkeeper kit with South Korea international midfielder Kim’s name on it, and they wouldn’t be able to procure one in time for the match. Women’s football news site Queensfield reported that in desperation, the club’s staff bought yellow dishcloths from a local Daiso, gluing them onto an existing keeper kit to cover Kim Jungmi’s name and number, and using marker pen to add those of Kim Minji instead.

In the end, given the unusual circumstances, the KWFF granted Seoul City permission for the goalkeeper to wear the team’s away field uniform instead, so Kim Minji walked out onto the Auxiliary Field of Seoul World Cup Stadium on Friday dressed in red.

Suwon FC are a formidable opponent at the best of times, having scored 37 goals in the first half of the season — over twice as many as any other team in the league, and all against specialist goalkeepers, of course. You couldn’t ask for a more daunting task for Kim Minji’s goalkeeping debut. Seoul’s woes only deepened when Bin Hyunjin was sent off in the 18th minute of the first half.

Still, the Amazones knuckled down and did their best to hold off the league leaders. Suwon were unable to score until just a few minutes before half time, when a corner kick led to Haruhi Suzuki nabbing her twelfth league goal of the season. Kim Minji made several saves throughout, including a particularly impressive one in first half injury time, and Han Chaerin almost managed to equalise on a couple of occasions. Even with ten women on the pitch, Seoul City were not giving up, and the score remained at 0-1 until the 86th minute, when substitute Song Jiyoon doubled Suwon’s lead. Shortly afterwards, she scored another, and the final score was 0-3. In the circumstances, it could have been much worse, but there are still no points for a loss, however hard fought.

Seoul’s third consecutive defeat means they remain in seventh place in the WK League table. As things stand, they are just two points off Sejong Sportstoto in sixth, and seven points ahead of eighth-placed Gangjin Swans. For the Amazones, the buffer between them and the bottom of the table, and Gangjin’s continuing poor form, may be some small comfort, giving them hope of getting through the next few goalkeeper-less weeks without dropping to dead last.

Seoul City’s next match is this Saturday (18th July), when they travel to Incheon.