I’ve got today’s early World Cup game on in the background this morning. It’s South Korea vs. Togo. The British commentator is doing an expert job of managing the two sets of foreign names. It’s a language all its own to my western ears:
Assemoassa takes the free. It’s headed on by Dossevi, but right into the gloves of Lee Woon-Jae. Lee Woon-Jae throws to Lee Yong-Pyo, who plays it forward to Lee Chun-Soo…
Interestingly, there are four Lee’s and and eight Kim’s on the team. All the Lee’s made the starting lineup, while only two of the Kim’s did. Conspiracy?
DarrenBarefoot.com 
When I was in Korea, I managed to meet at least two Lt. Lees, Three Lt. Kims and a Captain Kim. Confusing? Yes. But at least the margin for error was low enough that most of the time I ended up being correct.
South Korea’s entry in the World Baseball Classic was pretty much the same. There were six Kims and five Lees. I think their entire outfield had the last name of Lee at one point.
Lee Woon-Jae and Lee Yong-Pyo are honest players who make the team on merit Darren. Ditto, Lee Eul-Yong and Lee Chun So. There’s no conspiracy. But you could be right about the Kim’s.
When I worked at EA on FIFA Total Football (Japanese version), we fleshed out the Korean national team for world cup mode – I don’t think they were in the North American version. We found that the until-then standard practice of listing the last names of players on the roster was quite inadequate – there were only 4 symbols on the screen, and two of those were the symbols for “Lee” and “Kim”. We also had to do a rewrite to change around first name and surname. Fun times.
Similar to the Brazillians, they don’t do the last name thing on their kit. In fact, it’s getting more and more common for players to customize the name on their backs as the name printing thing is even relatively new to the World Cup (was it 1990 when it started?)…
Some, like France and Liverpool u21 striker Florent Sinama-Pongolle, just go by ‘Sinama’ instead.
…and hope and pray that Holland brings in their number 19, Jan Vennegoor Of Hesselink…yes, that whole last name is on his back. If they charged by the letter when you buy Dutch shirts I’d go for Cocu instead.
In related sports news, Canada still has a hockey team competing for the cup…any thoughts on Oil VS. Canes?
R: You can tell the NHL is still bush league when the level of interest declines with each round of the playoffs. After watching, what, 80 or 90 games already, I’m just bored of hockey. The World Cup only comes every four years, so it gets my attention.
Mind you, it sounds like I missed a great game while playing ultimate this evening.