They Only Win at Home

Chungnam Asan’s 2026 season looks like two teams’ records stitched together. At the Yi Sun-sin Stadium, 14 matches: 7 wins, 4 draws, 3 defeats, 25 points. Away, 11 matches: 2 wins, 3 draws, 6 defeats, 9 points.

1.79 points per match at home is the pace of the league’s 6th-placed team; 0.82 away is the pace of the 14th. The gap between the two, 0.97 points per match, is the largest of the 17 clubs in K League 2.

The problem is what is left. 8th in the September table on 34 points, and five of the last seven matches are away — R28 Gimhae · R29 Gyeongnam · R30 Suwon FC · R32 Paju · R33 Seoul E-Land. The two home matches are R31 v Gimpo and R34 v Busan.

So this piece asks one question: why do Chungnam Asan only win at home? The answer turned out not to be ordinary home advantage.

On results alone, this is “a team that is strong at home”. Re-read the matches by shot quality and the picture flips.

Non-penalty expected goal difference per match (chances created minus chances conceded, by xG): home −0.22, away +0.06. They conceded more at home. Replay the same shots 20,000 times at their xG: the 14 home matches brought 6.3 points more than expected (2nd in the league), the 11 away matches 4.7 fewer (the 3rd-largest shortfall). With the same shots, 25 or more points at home comes up 10% of the time; 9 or fewer away, 12%.

If you read part 19 on Gimpo FC, the shape is familiar. Gimpo had the best home performance in the league and the 11th-best home results. Chungnam Asan are the mirror image — outplayed more at home, and winning more there. The two meet at the Yi Sun-sin Stadium in R31 (31 October).

The last column of the table holds the first clue. Chungnam Asan have less of the ball at home (possession: home 47.4% · away 51.1%). The rest of this piece starts from that one column and works through attack, transitions and defence in turn.

The trajectory shows the home–away split is not a couple of freak results. Accumulate points minus expected points separately for home and away matches, and the two lines move in opposite directions all season.

The difference is settled by the first goal. In 14 home matches Chungnam Asan scored first 9 times and took 21 points from those matches. Away, they scored first only 1 time (R16 at Gimpo). Away they conceded first 8 times and took 4 points from those matches; 2 finished 0-0.

Across the season they score first 43.5% of the time (13th), but in matches where they do, they average 2.40 points (4th). When they score first, they hold on. Away, the chance rarely came.

This season had three people in charge. Gwansik Im left on 15 April “for personal reasons” after six matches (3W 1D 2L, 7th). A caretaker took four matches, and on 29 April the club appointed its first foreign head coach, André — a former player who won the 2000 title and the assists crown with Anyang LG, and who, as coach and then manager at Daegu FC, led them to promotion to K League 1 and an FA Cup. The club cited “a solid defensive organisation built on cooperative defending”. His official debut was R12 against Suwon FC on 17 May.

In numbers, André’s Chungnam Asan are a different team. Compared with Im’s, they keep the ball less (possession 52.7% → 46.7%), press less (PPDA approx. 2.5 → 4.5 — the opponent passes that much more freely in its own end) and defend deeper (average defensive action x 41.6 → 37.1, about 5 m further back). In return they concede less — non-penalty xG against per match down from 1.46 to about 1.03.

Something was lost too. Im’s side won the ball high and shot straight away (8.5 regains in the final third per match, 0.49 xG within 15 seconds of a regain). Under André: 4.3 and 0.23. The “quick counter” shrank as the point of regain moved back. Against the ten matches before him, points per match went from 1.50 to 1.27 — but expected points fell with them, from 1.35 to 1.26.

⭐ The home–away gap widened after the change. André’s eight home matches: possession 43.1%, 14 points (1.75 per match, +3.5 against expectation). Seven away: possession 50.7%, 5 points (0.71 per match, −3.4).

Start with the attacks Chungnam Asan build slowly with the ball — the settled attack. Getting up the pitch is not the problem.

Possessions that start in their own third reach the final third 35.5% of the time, 4th in the league. Attacks that get into the box: 13.8 per match, 6th. Where they first enter the final third, the half-spaces (the channels between the wing and the centre) take 30.7%, the league’s highest share, and the centre 18.0%, 2nd. This is a team that goes inside, not one that only circulates wide.

The problem is the next step. Only 44.2% of their attacks that reach the box end in a shot — the lowest in the league (average 51.4%). Entries through the half-spaces end in a shot 21.4% of the time (16th), and xG per entry there is 17th. Settled attacks produce 0.22 xG per match (16th), and 2 goals all season, the fewest of the 17 clubs.

The first row is Chungnam Asan’s blank. Settled attacks produced 59 shots worth 5.5 xG, and 2 goals. Away, 28 shots and not a single goal. Re-take those away shots at their xG and a blank comes up 7% of the time. League-wide, settled-attack shots go in less often than xG says (goals/xG 0.84), but Chungnam Asan’s −3.5 is the 2nd-largest shortfall.

Attacks built with the ball stop at the edge of the box. The longer Chungnam Asan have the ball, the longer they spend in their weakest phase.

The moment they win the ball back, Chungnam Asan are the most dangerous team in the league.

Attacks that start with a defensive regain have produced 23 goals, 3rd in the league. Those shots were worth 15.1 xG — 7.9 goals above xG, the most in the league, ahead of Seoul E-Land (+6.0). Shots within 15 seconds of the regain alone: xG 7.7, 12 goals (+4.3, again 1st).

And they are the fastest. From regain to first shot takes 26.8 seconds on average, the shortest of the 17 clubs (league average 35.5). After a regain in the middle third they shoot within 10 seconds 5.0% of the time — 1st — and xG within 15 seconds of a middle-third regain is 0.15 per match, 2nd. Goals from middle-third regains alone: 12, 1st in the league.

⭐ And this weapon works better at home. Regain-chain shots at home: 90, xG 9.5 → 15 goals. Away: 71, xG 5.6 → 8 goals. Re-taking the same shots, 15 or more home goals comes up 4.3% of the time. They actually win the ball more often away (55.3 per match at home · 60.1 away) — the difference is not how often they win it, but how often it ends in a goal.

Attacks that start from set pieces are worth 0.22 xG per 90, the most in the league. Yet they have produced 5 goals, 1.1 below xG (13th). With the same 48 shots (xG 6.1), 5 or fewer goals comes up 40% of the time — not a huge fluke, but the phase where they create most and gain least.

Overall finishing is above par: 30 non-penalty goals from 26.7 xG. Open-play goals minus xG is 1st in the league (+0.16 per 90). Two strikers carried it.

Denisson: 51 shots, 4.3 xG, 7 goals — 5 of them at home. Jongmin Kim: 7 goals from 4.6 xG (one penalty), above expectation home and away.

Take only the shots on target and recompute expected goals from which cell of the goal they went into (placement-adjusted): home, 49 on target → 20 goals, placement-expected 14.2; away, 47 on target → 10 goals, placement-expected 13.3. Balls into the same cells went in 5.8 more times than expected at home and 3.3 fewer away. The surplus home points came, in the end, from the last cell in front of goal.

André’s defending fits in one line: close the middle and drop back — and pay for it with the flanks and crosses.

Teams facing Chungnam Asan put in 15.4 crosses per match (3rd). Only 19.3% of them are completed (16th) — most are dealt with. Opponent box entries, at 12.6 per match, are around average.

The home–away split shows up here too. Opponents’ settled attacks are worth 0.48 xG per match at Chungnam Asan’s home (3rd-most), and 0.22 away (the 2nd-lowest). Opponent box entries: home 13.4 (4th) · away 11.6 (12th). Giving the ball away at home means opponents keep it for long spells in Chungnam Asan’s half. Under André the home PPDA approximation is 5.0 — far less pressing than away (3.9).

A team that deals with most crosses was hit unusually hard by the ones it did not. At home.

Opponents’ open-play shots straight from a cross at Chungnam Asan’s home: 23, with 4.7 xG between them. 12 went in — 7.3 more than xG. That is the largest excess of any of the 17 clubs at home, more than double the next (Seoul E-Land, +2.9). Away: 16 shots, xG 2.7, 2 goals — about as expected.

Of 16 open-play goals conceded at home, 12 (75%) came from crosses. The next-highest club is at 55%. Re-taking the same 23 shots at their xG, 12 or more goals comes up 0.03% of the time.

The goals look alike. In 9 of the 14 the cross came from near the byline (x ≥ 90); 9 were shot from the central box and 4 from the 6-yard box. None of the shots is logged as coming from a won aerial duel. They look less like high balls won in the air and more like cut-backs and low crosses from deep on the flank, finished inside the box (an estimate — the ball’s height is not recorded).

That matches a classic weakness of a deep block. When the back line drops towards goal, the space in front of the penalty spot opens up, and balls pulled back from deep on the flank arrive there. Chungnam Asan give the ball away more at home and opponents get deep on the flanks more often there, so these scenes cluster at home too.

In the moments after losing the ball — the defensive transition — Chungnam Asan rarely lose it in dangerous places.

They lose the ball in their own third 13.8 times per match, the 3rd-fewest in the league, and 60.2% of their losses happen in the opponent’s half (4th). So xG allowed within 15 seconds of losing the ball is 0.42 per match, 10th — around average.

The weak side is winning it back. They regain the ball within five seconds of losing it (counter-pressing) 23.6% of the time, 14th, and 23.0% under André. Lost balls are defended by dropping off, not by pressing to win them back.

⭐ Home and away split here too. xG allowed within 15 seconds of losing the ball: home 0.49 (6th-most), away 0.32 (the 3rd-lowest). Goals conceded that way: home 6 · away 4. Per match, it fell from 0.73 under Im to 0.29 under André — press less at the front, and less opens up at the back.

Join the pieces so far and you get one line. Chungnam Asan are strong when they give the ball away and weak when they have it. And they give it away more at home.

At home Chungnam Asan give the ball away. Opponents keep it longer and create more (xG conceded is higher at home than away), but that leaves more balls to win and more space to run into. Balls won back become goals faster and more reliably than anywhere else in the league. They score first, and when they score first, they hold on.

Away it turns around. When the home side sits back, Chungnam Asan end up with the ball (51.1% away), and that time goes into their weakest phase — the settled attack. They stall at the edge of the box, fail to score first, and chase.

Match by match the direction is the same. In the 13 matches where they had under 50% possession (9 of them at home): 22 points (expected 17.2). In the 12 with 50% or more (5 at home): 12 points (expected 15.2). The rank correlation between possession and points is −0.26.

Chungnam Asan move like a different team depending on the score.

• Leading — keep it, shoot rarely, shoot well. Possessions from their own third reach midfield 69.5% of the time, 1st in the league, but only 19.2% of final-third entries end in a shot (16th). They run the clock with the ball. Even so, open-play goals exceed xG by +0.44 per 90, 1st. In the 12 matches where they led, they averaged 2.50 points (2nd), and dropped just 6 points from winning positions — the fewest in the league.
• Level — the longest state, the smallest attacks. Over 1288 level minutes, xG per final-third chain is 0.021 (16th) and open-play xG is 14th. They spend most time in the state where they attack least. Defensively, counters allowed within 10 seconds are the 3rd-lowest.
• Trailing — they speed up. Shots within 10 seconds of a regain 4.7%, 1st; set-piece goals 0.55 per 90, 2nd. 42% of their goals while trailing came from penalties and set pieces. Still, after conceding first they average 0.62 points (9th).

Conceding first so often away means spending long spells away as “Chungnam Asan behind”. They do get quicker — just not enough to turn matches around.

In 25 matches, Chungnam Asan’s starting eleven has never been the same twice — 25 different XIs, 1st in the league. On average 2.9 changes per match, and the minutes-weighted average age of 29.4 is the 2nd-highest.

Two people did not change. Goalkeeper Songhoon Shin played all 2516 minutes of all 25 matches. In midfield Junho Son played 2396 — he missed only 120 minutes, too few for an on/off comparison.

Shin faced 91 non-penalty shots on target and conceded 30, against a placement expectation of 25.9 (+4.1, the 4th-largest excess). Split as on target/conceded/expected: home 52/17/15.2, away 39/13/10.6 — little difference by venue. This overlaps with the cross goals in the previous section, so it is not separated out — and placement expectation knows nothing of shot speed, distance or deflections.

In attack, with Denisson on the pitch (1891 minutes) non-penalty xG was 1.05 per 90; in the 625 minutes without him, 0.53. With defender Sungwoo Park on, xG against was 0.87 per 90; without him, 1.35. Substitutes scored 9 goals (27% of the team’s, league average 23%).

By time: 6 goals between minutes 16 and 30, the most in the league, and just 1 in the first 15 minutes. At home after the 75th minute they are outplayed, 3.0 : 7.1 in non-penalty xG (goals 4 : 6) — the tail end of home matches spent dropping off and holding on.

1–3 are the results, 4–7 are how those results were made, and 8–12 are the background to how they were made.

Representative matches are chosen by the series’ four rules — ① the match closest to the season average ② the most Chungnam Asan-like match (shots per entry) ③ the match where the result most outran the process ④ the match where the process most outran the result.

③ and ④ are this piece in miniature. The rules picked a home win without the ball and an away defeat with it.

Chungnam Asan are not a team that only wins at home. They are a team that wins when it gives the ball away — and those matches happen to be at home.

Five of the last seven are away (R28 Gimhae · R29 Gyeongnam · R30 Suwon FC · R32 Paju · R33 Seoul E-Land). Three things to watch:

• Away possession — 51.1% on the road so far. Can they build away matches around giving up the ball and winning it back? Is that even possible when the home side sits deep?
• The last step of the settled attack — they reach the box (entries 6th). Does the share of box entries that end in a shot (44.2%, the lowest) rise? Does the away settled-attack blank end?
• Crosses at home — are the 12 cross-assisted goals conceded at home a repeatable weakness or an outlier? The two remaining home matches (R31 Gimpo · R34 Busan) are the first test.