Korean top scorer Ji So-yun joins Seattle Reign on two-season deal

Korean top scorer Ji So-yun has signed with National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) team Seattle Reign, the club confirmed Wednesday.

Ji So-yun, center, scores for Suwon FC Women in the first round of the WK League Championship against the Incheon Hyundai Red Angels at Suwon Stadium in Suwon, Gyeonggi on Nov. 19, 2023. [NEWS1]

Korean top scorer Ji So-yun has signed with National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) team Seattle Reign, the club confirmed Wednesday.

Ji, who is the highest scoring Korean national team player of all time for either or men’s or women’s team, is joins Seattle through the 2025 season, the club said in an announcement on its website. Details of the deal were not disclosed, but Korean newspaper Sports Chosun earlier reported that it was “lucrative.”

"It is a highlight moment in the history of the club to be signing a player of Ji's pedigree and ability,” Seattle Reign FC General Manager Lesle Gallimore said in a statement. “Her experience and accomplishments are well documented. The intangibles she brings are an individual style to her game, veteran leadership and a game savvy, which complements others around her and gives opponents fits. We can't wait to see her in the team and for our fans to get to know her."

Ji arrives in Seattle after playing two seasons with WK League side Suwon FC Women. She joined the club in May 2022 from Chelsea, voluntarily abandoning a highly-successful Women’s Super League career in order to try and raise the quality of domestic football in Korea ahead of last year’s World Cup.

Ji, now 32, debuted with Chelsea in 2014 and went on to win both Player of the Year and PFA Players' Player of the Year.

She made over 200 appearances for the London club, scoring 68 goals across all competitions with 37 in the Super League. When she left in 2022, Ji was tied for fifth in the all-time ranking for assists in the Super League, at 29.

Over those eight years, Ji won six Super League titles, three FA Cups, one community shield and two Continental Cups. She was the first non-British player to pass 100 and 200 Super League appearances and is still recognized as one of the best international players ever to play in the British league.

But Ji voluntarily left Chelsea in order to focus on the national team ahead of the World Cup, where Korea finished fourth in Group H with two draws and a loss, and the domestic WK League.

Ji is the second Korean national team player to join an NWSL club this month. Her teammate Casey Phair — the youngest player ever to appear at a Women’s World Cup, the first multiracial player ever to play for Korea and the second-youngest player ever to score the Korean women’s team after Ji — signed with Los Angeles’ Angel City Football Club last week.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]