Seung-won Lee is a 22-year-old midfielder who plays for Gangwon FC in the K-League. Lee has recently re-joined Gangwon after completing his mandatory 2-year military service, during which time he played for Gimcheon Sangmu. Lee has 2 senior caps with South Korea, and has played for them extensively at youth level.
Lee is listed at 5’9″ (1.74 m) and is quite thin. He is often listed as an attacking midfielder, or even a striker, but in practice, he is almost always an attacking #8. Lee’s main strength is his ball progression. He is very good at playing short line-breaking passes in the midfield that get his team into the final third. He doesn’t play very many long-range passes, but he does consistently move the ball forward 10-15 yards with 1-2s. Lee is also quite a good carrier of the ball. He has a really strong first touch and good close control. He is a fairly strong 1v1 dribbler and is really quick with the ball at his feet. Lee’s lack of physical strength means that he gets knocked off the ball fairly easily if opponents can catch up to him. Despite demonstrating a lot of on-ball skill, Lee does not have very high offensive outputs. Part of this is that most of his touches are in the middle third of the field. He does a decent job of making runs into channels, but these are mostly midfield channels rather than getting free from the last line of defence. If he got further forward more frequently, that might lead to more shots. I would also like to see him do more to get into the box in general. On the passing side of things, he is sometimes a little bit too slow to play the final killer pass. He sometimes spends a little bit too long running with the ball, and that causes him to lose an opportunity to set something up.
Lee is not very active at all on the defensive side of things. He does not stand out as a particularly good presser or ball-winner. This is a bit tough to take when he also doesn’t have very much end product. At this stage, he is essentially a luxury player who only gives you good ball progression. One defensive skill he does have is that he makes a decent number of interceptions. When he does intercept the ball, his speed and passing ability help his team transition very quickly.
Seung-won Lee has a lot of positive skills, but doesn’t quite have the end product to make him a top-end prospect. However, he is still relatively young, and the fact that his military service is already out of the way does make him an interesting bet. A lot of South Korean players end up in German-speaking Europe, so a 2. Bundesliga team or a mid-table team in the Austrian Bundesliga could see Lee as a good bet.
Target Scouting 