2025-03-05

[Groundhopping] Hwaseong FC vs Chungnam Asan 1-1

πŸŸ§πŸ¦‰ Hwaseong FC vs Chungnam Asan 1-1
πŸ† K League 2
🏟️ Hwaseong Sports Complex
πŸ—“️ 2025-03-02
πŸ•‘ 14:00
🎟️ 10000 KRW
πŸ‘₯ 3731
πŸ” Sundae(Korean blood sausage) 5000 KRW

✍️ Hwaseong's first ever professional match played on their soil. An historical moment for a city of 1 million, with the mayor's speech and fireworks and everything. While getting some scran I overheard some people talking about the last match. 'The city had prepared a lot for the away game, they even gathered all the civil servants to a send a crowd of thousand.' I thought it was funny but I already should've noticed that, let me say… this wasn't the club with the most fervent fans.
First off, clap sticks handed out to the supporters! By returning it you little fridge magnet with the matchday info. You see, this club don't really have a supporter culture yet. The ones trying to rally the crowd were the cheerleaders and a small group of middle-aged people with Korean drums. They tried their best but weren't very persuasive to the side I was sitting on. (Actually I was on the wrong row when taking that 1st pic)
It rained on the 2nd half so they opened the 2nd floor. This place is pretty big with 35 thousand seats. No roof for the away fans, despite being just a 5-year-old club they were quite well organised with their support.
This ended up more like a ramble, was I too harsh to a club that just turned professional? I have just 2 games left to be their number 1 fan on Futbology, anyway. πŸ˜…

2025-03-01

To Munich & Madrid

This and the previous 7-0 were a bit inspired by the Vienna Secession posters I saw at the National Music of Korea.
The guy is Larry Lloyd, RIP.

A cartoon-style watercolour painting. The background is vertically divided into 3 parts—a white centre that covers half of the canvas with two red sides. Larry Lloyd stands in the centre and smiles down as he holds up a giant Champions League trophy above his head. White radial lines come out of the trophy on top of the red parts, which stretches down to form a star shape on each end of the bottom of the canvas. Below Larry is a small Forest crest with the text 'TO MUNICH & MADRID' in all caps.

2025-02-24

[Groundhopping] Seongnam FC vs Hwaseong FC 2-0

πŸͺ½πŸŸ§ Seongnam FC vs Hwaseong FC 2-0
πŸ† K League 2
🏟️ Tancheon Sports Complex
πŸ“ Seongnam, South Korea
πŸ—“️ 2025-02-23
πŸ•‘ 14:00
🎟️ 15000 KRW
πŸ‘₯ 3314

✍️ They don't know I'm from Hwaseong… Paying 5000 extra for the 2nd floor was sure worth it. And so that's the AFC Champions League, the Korean 1st and 2nd division all visited in one week! Whew!

Trivia: Hwaseong FC joined the K League 2 this year and this was their first ever match as a professinal club. Their new coach is Cha Du-ri, who is famous for being the son of Cha Bum-kun(who was born in Hwaseong) and for this catchy La Cucaracha-esque supplement ad that was a mega hit in the early 2010s. (I, too, used to hum this around)

2025-02-22

[Groundhopping] FC Seoul vs FC Anyang 2-1

πŸ‘ΉπŸŸͺ FC Seoul vs FC Anyang 2-1
πŸ† K League 1
🏟️ Seoul World Cup Stadium
πŸ“ Seoul, South Korea
πŸ—“️ 2025-02-22
πŸ•Ÿ 16:30
🎟️ 19000 KRW
πŸ‘₯ 41415

✍️ First home match of the season, and Anyang being just 2 hours away meant a cracking atmosphere from both sides. And guess what, Lingard scored the opener to win the home side 2-1! He's Seoul's captain and biggest star and he's sure loving it here.
 

2025-02-19

[Groundhopping] Gwangju FC vs Buriram United 2-2

πŸ‡°πŸ‡·πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡­ Gwangju FC vs Buriram United 2-2
πŸ† AFC Champions League Elite
🏟️ Gwangju World Cup Stadium
πŸ“ Gwangju, South Korea
πŸ—“️ 2025-02-18
πŸ•– 19:00
🎟️ 15000 KRW
πŸ‘₯ 2688

✍️ Gwangju FC are having the time of their lives now. They finished 3rd right after promotion to the top tier in 2023, qualified for an Asian tourment for the first time in history and had already secured RO16 before this final round match.

Actually I don't follow the K League, this is only the 2nd time I attended a game (the first was FC Seoul vs Ulsan HD last November, seeing the stadium erupt after Lingard's goal felt extra surreal as a Forest fan in Korea πŸ˜…) but now I got interested and I'm ready to tick a few more off the list this year.

2025-02-14

I think football saved my life (an honest comic about how it feels)

Some feeling that I don't generally show in my art. Existental dread is hitting pretty hard in these times, no?
A four-panel comic in watercolour.  [1st] The artist's avatar(a brick red lindworm) looks out the balcony window with a snowy hill visible outside and thinks 'I hope spring won't come this year'.  [2nd] Same scene viewed from outside the window and closed up. It thinks 'I doubt it will. Everything is dying and it's our fault, we don't deserve flowers'  [3rd] A closeup that only the lindworm's eye is visible. There is a big '!' and a speech bubble that reads 'But… if it never gets warm, when will I start wearing football shirts?' Below is a small drawing of the lindworm wearing a padded jacket and shivering.  [4th] The lindworm wearing a Maribor 24/25 away shirt frolicks on a sunny green and yellow field. There are plants that resemble club crests: a green and red tree on the horizon(Southampton and Forest), a red lily with purple leaves(Fiorentina), a green plant(FenerbahΓ§e), a red rose(Blackburn), a four-leaf clover(Celtic) and two three-leaf clovers(FΓΌrth/Panathinaikos/Omonia).

2025-01-22

2025-01-07

Π‘Ρ€Π΅Ρ›Π°Π½ Π‘ΠΎΠΆΠΈΡ›, ΠœΠΈΠ»Π΅Π½ΠΊΠΎΠ²ΠΈΡ›!

January 7th is Christmas in Serbia!
A cartoon-style watercolour painting. Nikola Milenković wearing a Christmas hat is running across some snowy hills with a Champions League ball in his hand. A trail of red stars come out of the ball. He is pointing towards the black night sky where there are two big red stars. The bigger star shines down a beam of red light like the Star of Bethlehem. There are some trees on the hills that is shaped like the Forest badge. There is red text on the top right that says "БрСћан БоТић!" which is "Merry Christmas!" in Serbian.
Srećan Božić, Milenković!
Merry Christmas, Milenković!

2024-12-26

Pikmin Boxing Day!

Obsessed with this augmented reality game called Pikmin Bloom lately!

When they reach enough friendship points, these little creatures called Pikmin will bring a decor and dress up themselves based on where they are born. Red Pikmin born near stadiums will bring a football keychain. This time, other Pikmin are also dressed up as balls for Boxing Day!

Actually, this was painted in advance in November 22 for a college art club exhibition.

2024-12-24

Greetings from Forest!

A watercolour painting inspired by the Christmas card by David Lewis. The only colors are black, white, gray and red. Nuno in Santa clothes is skiing down some snowy hills. There are lots of trees shaped like the Nottingham Forest badge. Nuno is carrying a sack filled with the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League trophy. A full moon shaped like the Champions League starball is up in the night sky.
Inspired by this Christmas card by David Lewis in 1973.