Britain’s “The Athletic” released a behind-the-scenes story of Lingard’s transfer to Seoul on the 10th (Korea time). “The turbulent eight months, a new path between Korea and the K-League, and Seoul excited Lingard,” The Athletic said.
Lingard is an English offensive midfielder. He received a lot of attention as a native of Manchester United. His biggest advantage is that he has excellent tactical implementation ability based on his large amount of activity. In particular, he is evaluated for his excellent off-the-ball movement. He is also good at raising many passes, such as third and second assists.
Lingard joined Manchester United’s youth team in 2000 at the age of seven and played for Manchester United until the summer of 2022. He became a regular at Manchester United during the 2015-2016 season, and contributed to Manchester United’s FA Cup victory in 12 years by scoring a come-from-behind winning goal in the second half of extra time against Crystal Palace in the FA Cup final. In the 2016-2017 season, he won the Carabao Cup and UEFA Europa League.
In particular, he is the one who wrote the story of “rental” in the 2020-2021 season. Lingard chose to move to West Ham United to play in order to get a chance to play, but made dramatic comeback by scoring nine goals and four assists in 19 matches. With Lingard’s performance at the forefront, West Ham secured a ticket to the UEFA Europa League, and Lingard rejoined the English national team.
He was also on England’s final roster for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia. In the second group match against Panama, he got a penalty kick and scored his debut goal with a fantastic kick. Lingard also assisted Dele Alli in the quarterfinals against Sweden, helping England advance to the semifinals for the first time in 28 years.
Lingard joined Nottingham Forest after his contract expired in the summer of 2022. Lingard’s performance was disappointing, although he had high expectations as he received 150,000 pounds (230 million won) a week, the most in his team. Lingard failed to accumulate a single attack point in 17 Premier League matches. He scored two goals and two assists in three matches in the Carabao Cup alone.
After the end of the season, Lingard was notified of his release by Nottingham. Since then, Lingard has been unable to find his own team and spent six months unbeatable. According to The Athletic, Lingard contacted West Ham head coach David Moyes last summer. Lingard has a special relationship with Moyes. He was linked with Manchester United in the 2013-2014 and 2020-2021 seasons.
Lingard originally wanted to become an FA after playing well for Nottingham, but it didn’t come true as he hoped. Although Lingard didn’t go to West Ham a year ago, Moyes welcomed him and enabled him to build up his physical strength at the club. Lingard trained with players for a month, and Moyes was impressed by Lingard. He also gave the team a chance to play in a closed friendly match in September.
However, thanks to Gerard Bowen, Lucas Paqueta, Michael Antonio, and Mohamed Kudus, Moyes felt he would be restricted from playing. Eventually, Moyes refused to offer him a contract, and Lingard was offered by other teams. Wolverhampton Wanderers and Everton wanted Lingard, but no formal offer came. The contract with Saudi professional league al-Etipak also fell through.
The EFL Championship (second division) teams wanted Lingard, too, but he did not. Lingard also rejected various offers from Turkey, Slovakia, and the U.S. MLS. Seoul had been interested in the offer for six weeks. The offer from Seoul attracted Lingard’s attention in many ways. Potential marketing, commercial transactions, and shirt and merchandise sales were all considered by Lingard.
Lingard has received significant offers over the past few days, with few paperwork offers from other clubs, many of which were short-term contracts. Seoul was the only team that excited Lingard. He could have gone to Turkey or the United States, but he wanted to try something differently new and nontraditional, and most importantly, Lingard wanted to start playing soccer again.