Lee Kang-in's First Madrid Derby and Two Kickoff Times

Lee Kang-in's first Madrid derby is on Sunday. If you are watching from Korea, the thing to settle before anything else is what time it starts. Korean coverage has two times in circulation for the same match, 10:15 p.m. KST and 11:15 p.m. KST.

Edaily and Sports Khan, both relaying Coupang Play's broadcast announcement, give the figure as "20일 오후 10시 15분", Edaily tagging it 한국시각 and Sports Khan 한국시간. The two ordinary match previews, from MyDaily and MHN, give "오후 11시 15분".

Which of the two kickoff times is right

The international previews carry a third number, and the time-zone arithmetic is straightforward. OneFootball puts the kickoff at 16:15 on Sunday 20 September at the Estadio Metropolitano, and Goal gives the same match as 14:15 GMT at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano. Madrid is on CEST in September, two hours ahead of UTC, and Korea is nine hours ahead of UTC.

That makes it 23:15 in Seoul, which matches the two match previews and not the two broadcast stories. The same kickoff is 14:15 UTC, 10:15 a.m. US Eastern and 3:15 p.m. in the UK.

Opening the app an hour early costs you an hour and nothing else. I could not find a page on Coupang Play's own site saying whether its 10:15 figure is the start of the pre-match programme or simply a slip.

Korean viewers get something new with this one. Coupang Play is sending a crew to Madrid, and Edaily is plain about why that matters: "국내 중계사가 스페인 프로축구 라리가 경기를 현장에서 생중계하는 것은 이번이 처음이다." No Korean broadcaster has carried a La Liga match from the ground before. The coverage includes an exclusive interview with Lee about the match ahead and a dedicated camera on him, which Coupang Play is calling the "쿠플 이강인 캠".

Six rounds, two MVPs

Lee has two goals and one assist from six league appearances. He has also been named La Liga's official man of the match twice, and MHN reports he is the only Atlético player with more than one this season.

The first came on the opening matchday against Málaga, where he came off the bench and scored on his debut. The second came this week against Osasuna. Newspim puts the goal at 후반 9분, nine minutes into the second half: on a counter Jonathan David laid it off from the flank, Lee finished with his right foot for 2-0. Robin Le Normand and Álex Baena added the other two in a 4-0 home win.

Xportsnews logged the rest of his night. Six shots, four of them on target. Three key passes, two tackles won from two attempted, one interception. Thirty-nine passes completed from 51, a rate of 76 per cent.

He also played the full ninety for the first time since the transfer. Simeone had been using him as one of two forwards alongside Ademola Lookman and Álex Baena; against Osasuna he moved him to the right flank and put Jonathan David up front with Lookman.

Lee talked about the derby in his post-match interview with Movistar LaLiga. Xportsnews's Korean transcript has him saying "더비에서 승리할 수 있도록 잘 준비하겠다. 준비하고 회복할 수 있는 시간이 며칠 있다", which I would render as: I will prepare well so that we can win the derby, and there are a few days to prepare and recover. In a separate interview he said the award should have gone to the man who set him up, "훌륭한 경기를 한 데이비드가 MVP를 받을 자격이 있다고 생각한다".

MHN, summarising a Mundo Deportivo piece from 19 September KST, has the Spanish paper writing "이미 최우수 선수(MVP) 트로피 수집가가 됐다", that he has already become a collector of MVP trophies. I did not open the Spanish original, so that is a translation of a translation and I am flagging it as one.

Has Lee Kang-in ever scored against Real Madrid?

Once.

September 2021, at the Santiago Bernabéu, for Mallorca. MHN counts eight meetings with Real across his spells at Valencia, Mallorca and Paris Saint-Germain, three wins and five defeats, and that Bernabéu strike is the only goal he has managed against them. Mallorca lost that match 1-6.

MyDaily adds an assist against Real the following season and a 1-0 Mallorca win in 2023; MHN dates the 4-1 Valencia win to 2020. The most recent meeting went best of all. MHN has PSG beating Real 4-0 at the Club World Cup, though Lee was on the pitch for eleven minutes of it.

Sunday's derby is not there, by the way. The stadium above is the Bernabéu, where the 2021 goal went in; the Metropolitano is across the city.

Watching from outside Korea

In the United States the league sits with ESPN, and ESPN+ carries every match in the competition. World Soccer Talk lists this derby at 10:15 a.m. ET on ESPN2, ESPN Deportes and ESPN+, with the linear ESPN channels reachable through Fubo, DirecTV Stream, Sling Orange and Hulu + Live TV.

The UK took the most digging. La Liga's own announcement of its UK and Ireland deal says Premier Sports covers over 340 live matches a season through Sky, Virgin Media, Prime Video Channels and the Premier Sports Player, and that Disney+ is the exclusive home of Saturday primetime kick-offs. This is a Sunday afternoon, so it falls to Premier Sports, and the UK listings site Live Football on TV has the fixture on Premier Sports 1 at 15:15, the same time the conversion above gives.

The form line before kickoff

Atlético are fourth, per La Liga's own table, on 13 points from six matches. Real Madrid are second on 15 from six. Barcelona lead on 21 from seven, a game more than either Madrid club has played, and they have won all seven.

Atlético arrive in better form than fourth place suggests. Al Jazeera's preview notes they lost back-to-back matches to Bilbao and Liverpool earlier this month, then beat Real Sociedad 3-0 and Osasuna 4-0. Real have wobbled. A defeat to Betis, then a 3-2 win over bottom club Elche after surrendering a two-goal lead. "The problem seems obvious to me. It's harder to know why, but it's easy to understand that there are matches that seem over and, in the end, aren't," José Mourinho said of that second half in the same preview.

Opta's supercomputer, quoted there too, makes Real Madrid favourites at 46.6 per cent, Atlético at 28.3 and the draw at 25.1. For me that reads low for a home side that scored four a week ago. The longer record is not on my side, though. Edaily notes that Real lead the all-time head-to-head, and that Atlético have taken two wins from the last five meetings.

Lee has not yet scored in consecutive league games for Atlético, and MyDaily frames Sunday as his first chance at it. Kickoff is 11:15 p.m. in Seoul. For once, no alarm needed.

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