By Yoo Jee-ho

SEOUL, Aug. 5 (Yonhap) -- A combination of record-breaking heat wave and notable absences conspired to keep fans away for Manchester City's preseason friendly match in Seoul on Wednesday.

Man City defeated Team K League, a squad of South Korean league All-Stars, by the score of 3-1 at Seoul World Cup Stadium. All four goals were scored in an entertaining first half, while defense and stout goalkeeping ruled the day in the second half.

This was the first of two matches for this year's Coupang Play Series, launched by the namesake streaming service in 2022 that invites popular European football clubs for friendlies against K Leaguers and against each other. Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham Hotspur have all played here, with Man City and Atletico Madrid making their second visits to South Korea this month.

The announced crowd of 28,306 was the second smallest in Coupang Play Series history, less than half full at the 66,000-seat venue.

In 2025, Newcastle United and Team K League played before 27,422 fans at Suwon World Cup Stadium in Suwon, south of Seoul. The Suwon venue has a capacity of about 42,000, though, and Wednesday's match looked far more sparse at the bigger stadium.

Last summer, Newcastle and Tottenham played with 64,773 fans at Seoul World Cup Stadium.

That match had the benefit of being South Korean star Son Heung-min's final appearance for Tottenham, giving it the kind of appeal that Wednesday's contest lacked.

With all due respect to the likes of Ruben Dias, Phil Foden and Gianluigi Donnarumma, Man City were missing their two biggest stars, Rodri and Erling Haaland.

These two did not travel to South Korea as they were resting following a deep run at the FIFA World Cup. Rodri captained Spain to the championship and captured the Golden Ball award as the competition's top player, and he underwent a back surgery soon afterward. Haaland scored seven times while taking his upstart Norway to the quarterfinals.

The Man City-Team K League match was also played with Seoul under a serious heat wave warning, the highest-level heat advisory in South Korea. The mercury sat around 32 C at 8 p.m. kickoff, with the perceived temperature at 34 C due to humidity.

The stadium was slow to fill up with many fans choosing to spend as much time as they could inside the air-conditioned food court, cafe and mall near the stadium.

Those that braved the oppressive heat were treated to some exciting moments. Tijjani Reijnders helped create the opening goal by Rayan Ait-Nouri with some great individual effort inside the box in the ninth minute, and then scored one himself in the 20th minute, as Antoine Semenyo provided the assist with a back-heel pass.

In the second half, new Team K League goalkeeper Gu Sung-yun stole the show with a series of saves that kept the score respectable.

jeeho@yna.co.kr

(END)

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