Seo Young-jae joins Hamburg of German Bundesliga

Seo Young-jae (20), a fullback of Korea’s Olympic soccer team Park Ji-sung paid attention in the past, has joined Hamburg of the German Bundesliga. Hamburg is the team that Son Heung-min (23) was affiliated before moving to Leverkusen in July 2013.

Through its website on Wednesday, Hamburg announced that the club signed a three-year contract with young Korean player Seo Young-jae who has strong commitment and enthusiasm to learn soccer.

Seo contributed to Korea’s wining the silver medal at the Gwangju Universiade Games in July. His position at Hamburg is the left fullback, the same position as Kim Jin-soo (23) who is playing for Hoffenheim of the Bundesliga. While studying at Boin High School in 2012, Seo was singled out to become a finalist through fierce competition in the Korean preliminary round of a project to discover promising global soccer players, which was hosted by Nike. At the Korean preliminary competition that involved more than 4,300 players, two players including Seo were singled out, and Park Ji-sung served as a judge at that time.

At the project to discover promising players held at Barcelona, Spain in August 2012, Seo passed the first and second rounds from among 100 players from 55 countries, and made the list of 26 best players. However, he failed to join the 16 finalists. Back then, three players including an extra player participated in the project to represent Korea, and Seo was the only one to pass the second round.

A left-footed player, Seo is a fullback having a strong tendency to play offense, has robust capacity to manage his play in matches, and is recognized for superb overlapping skills and precise crosses among his strengths. Since he was a field athlete during elementary school years, he also runs fast. “Young-jae is a pullback with strong tendency to play offense. He cleverly plays in matches. Standing 182 centimeters tall, he weighs less than the average weight (71 kilograms), but if he increases his physique through weight training, he would be able to display impressive performance in the European stage as well," said Jeong Jae-gwon (45), the coach of Hanyang University’s soccer team. "With cheerful and outgoing personality, Young-jae easily socializes with people, and is expected to instantly adapt himself to German society.”

Hamburg reportedly sped up the process to sign contract with Seo due to lack of players to fill the left pullback position. Hence, chances are high that Seo will play as a member of the first string group of the team starting this season.