Can Urko Vera help clinch the title for Jeonbuk?
When Jeonbuk lost star striker Edu to Hebei China Fortune earlier this month, questions were raised, not only about whether Jeonbuk could maintain their seven point lead over Suwon, but about the K-League in general and whether it was becoming a second tier league within Asia. Edu’s departure, just six months after signing from FC Tokyo, was the latest in a wave of top K-League players making the move from Korea to the higher salaries of China and the Middle East. With Jeonbuk being Korea’s only remaining team in the Asian Champions’ League this season, the K-League’s grip on the continent’s biggest competition also looks to be slipping. The last two competitions have been won by Chinese and Australian teams after a previous spell of Korean dominance that led to three trophies between 2009 and 2012.
With that in mind, many fans didn’t expect Jeonbuk to replace Edu at all. Their nearest rivals Suwon had just sold their star player Jong Tae-Se, most likely as part of an effort to reduce their own wage bill, so it seemed likely that Jeonbuk would try and get by with Lee Dong-Gook (who is incidentally the K-League’s joint-second highest scorer this season) leading the line.
The signing of a Spanish striker who has been attracting attention from teams in La Liga comes as a surprise even before looking at it through the context of a declining K-League. Urko Vera scored an impressive seventeen goals in Spain’s second tier last season, finishing joint sixth in the league scoring charts. This statistic is even more impressive when you consider that his team, Mirandes, only scored forty-two goals all season, one of the lowest totals in the division. Urko, born in the Basque region of Spain, has spent most of his career in the Spanish second tier, apart from a brief spell with his hometown club Athletic Bilbao in La Liga. With the exception of last season’s seventeen goals, he has not been particularly prolific over his career. However, he has shown that he can be a vital player in a winning team, having played thirty-one times for Eibar as the tiny club, with a ground capable of holding less than six-thousand supporters, won the Segunda Division and earned promotion to La Liga for the first time in their history. At aged twenty-eight, Vera is at the peak of his career, and his recent form suggests that he has a lot still to offer. His move is a clear signal of intent by Jeonbuk. It may not be a signing on the level of Paulinho for Guangzhou Evergrande or Asamoah Gyan for Shanghai SIPG, but Urko Vera is still a decent player who is a cut above many of the foreign signings that can be found in the K-League, and is a sign that teams in the K-League are still willing to spend some money to try and be competitive.
With that in mind, many fans didn’t expect Jeonbuk to replace Edu at all. Their nearest rivals Suwon had just sold their star player Jong Tae-Se, most likely as part of an effort to reduce their own wage bill, so it seemed likely that Jeonbuk would try and get by with Lee Dong-Gook (who is incidentally the K-League’s joint-second highest scorer this season) leading the line.
The signing of a Spanish striker who has been attracting attention from teams in La Liga comes as a surprise even before looking at it through the context of a declining K-League. Urko Vera scored an impressive seventeen goals in Spain’s second tier last season, finishing joint sixth in the league scoring charts. This statistic is even more impressive when you consider that his team, Mirandes, only scored forty-two goals all season, one of the lowest totals in the division. Urko, born in the Basque region of Spain, has spent most of his career in the Spanish second tier, apart from a brief spell with his hometown club Athletic Bilbao in La Liga. With the exception of last season’s seventeen goals, he has not been particularly prolific over his career. However, he has shown that he can be a vital player in a winning team, having played thirty-one times for Eibar as the tiny club, with a ground capable of holding less than six-thousand supporters, won the Segunda Division and earned promotion to La Liga for the first time in their history. At aged twenty-eight, Vera is at the peak of his career, and his recent form suggests that he has a lot still to offer. His move is a clear signal of intent by Jeonbuk. It may not be a signing on the level of Paulinho for Guangzhou Evergrande or Asamoah Gyan for Shanghai SIPG, but Urko Vera is still a decent player who is a cut above many of the foreign signings that can be found in the K-League, and is a sign that teams in the K-League are still willing to spend some money to try and be competitive.