The latest chapter in Mix Diskerud’s career odyssey will take place in South Korea.
The 27-year-old U.S. Men’s National Team midfielder joined Ulsan Hyundai on loan from Manchester City on Tuesday.
OFFICIAL | Ulsan Hyundai have confirmed a signing of American midfielder Mix Diskerud on loan from Manchester City. #kleague pic.twitter.com/4KcZVatayC
— Korea Football News (@KORFootballNews) July 17, 2018
Diskerud left New York City FC to sign with Manchester City in a move designed to clear his salary off NYCFC’s books, while paying Diskerud to agree to terminate his MLS deal.
Diskerud spent most of the last two seasons in Sweden with Goteborg, where he scored twice in 1,054 minutes during the 2018 season.
This is an odd move. K-League and J-League are the best two leagues in Asia, however don’t understand the point of playing there unless they are in the Asian Champions League.
Thought he would be more suitable for the A-League (Melbourne City FC) since MCFC are owned by Man City. Perhaps, they did not meet his salary demands and the K-League side were closer in pay.
Ulsan is a nice city…decently sized expat community for a large city considering it’s not in the Greater Seoul Metropolitan Area and doesn’t have a US military base.
However, The K-League is definitely in decline…not really an improvement over playing in MLS or Sweden.
Interesting destination. He’s has a fascinating career so far, even though he couldn’t hack it at NYCFC. I know nothing abound the Korean league other than what I’ve learned playing FIFA on XBOX over the years. I wish him well.
Odd career path continues for odd guy.
Food? Certainly MLS is better than Australia and on par with SK and Japan.
South Korea’s K-League is undoubtedly worse than MLS at this point.
A good chunk of South Korea’s national team still plays domestically, but the K-League has lost a lot of mid-tier Korean players to China, Japan and the Middle East the past 5 years or so.
Also the quality of international players (teams are only allowed 3-4) has declined in recent years. In the past the K-League filled up their roster slots with experienced South Americans, and players with Australians and players from the former Yugoslav Republics who had legit national team careers. Now roughly 3/4 of the international players are Brazilians, many without any real success in Brazil itself, and some picked from Serie B/C/D level clubs. One of the clubs recently used it’s Asian Player slot to sign a 20 year old Japanese kid who only had 4 first team appearances in 2-3 seasons in the Japanese second division.
The only international players I’d really rate above “meh” based on their performances prior to signing in South Korea are Adriano, Gamalho, Richard Winbichler and Devan Demjanovich (who first came to Korea like 10 years ago). With all due respect to South Korea’s domestic players, Diskerud may end up being one of the better players in the entire league.
Cool. I’ve wanted some Americans to try Australia, Japan, Korea.