Pohang Steelers

Ulsan sits an hour down the same coastline, and the two cities have been trading grievances on a pitch since long before anyone called it the Donghaean Derby. Both grew out of heavy industry, and both answer to a corporate owner.

That is the year worth dwelling on.

The steel came first. POSCO founded the side in 1973 as a works team and has never sold it.

Continentally, Pohang won the Asian Club Championship in consecutive years, 1997 and 1998, the second of those on penalties in Hong Kong against Dalian Wanda after a goalless final. Eleven years later they beat Al-Ittihad 2–1 to take the AFC Champions League, which remains the last time a Korean side lifted it with a squad assembled on this scale.

The academy has since sent out Hwang Hee-chan, who left for Red Bull Salzburg in 2015 as a teenager, and Son Jun-ho, who came back through the same pipeline and was named the league's most valuable player in 2020.

But if one name is spoken first in Pohang it is Hwang Sun-hong, the striker of the mid-1990s side, who was there for both Asian titles and for the club's first FA Cup in 1996 — a final settled 7–6 on penalties against Suwon Samsung Bluewings.