Hong Hyun-seok makes debut start as Mainz hold Stuttgart to 3-3 draw

Hong Hyun-seok made his first appearance for Mainz 05 on Saturday, starting in the midfield alongside Lee Jae-sung just two days after signing with the Bundesliga club.

Mainz's Jonathan Burkardt, left, celebrates after scoring his side's second goal with Hong Hyun-seok during a Bundesliga match against Stuttgart in Stuttgart, Germany on Saturday. [AP/YONHAP]

Hong Hyun-seok made his first appearance for Mainz 05 on Saturday, starting in the midfield alongside Lee Jae-sung just two days after signing with the Bundesliga club.

Hong, 25, played 64 minutes in the Bundesliga match up as Mainz held VfB Stuttgart to a 3-3 draw on the road at the MHPArena in Stuttgart, Germany. Club veteran Lee played 87 minutes.

Hong joined Mainz on Thursday from Belgian club KAA Gent on a 4 million euro ($4.5 million) deal that will see him play for the club through 2028. The move came 2 weeks after Hong announced on his personal Instagram page that he was moving to Turkish team Trabzonspor.

Hong said that he was moving to Turkish because he wanted to, adding that it was against the advice of his agent. The statement appeared to be in response to a negative reaction to rumors of the move from Korean fans who felt that Hong had the potential to go further in a major European league.

But despite Hong’s Instagram post, he never actually left Gent, although he did not appear for the club last week. Whether the Mainz deal was on the cards at the time is unclear.

Hong joined K League 1 side Ulsan Hyundai, now Ulsan HD, in 2018, but immediately spent a loan spell at SpVgg Unterhaching in the 3. Liga — the third division in German football.

After another loan spell from 2019 to 2020 at Austrian team Juniors OO, he joined fellow Austrian team LASK in August 2020 but spent a second loan spell at Juniors for the 2020-21 season.

The 2021-22 season saw him establishing himself as a regular pick, playing 40 fixtures across all competitions.

He has further picked up his form since joining Gent in 2022, having played as a key midfielder and racking up 18 goals and 20 assists across 104 matches so far. Hong’s performance at Gent started with a bang — he scored with a bicycle kick in his very first game.

Hong has become an increasingly common pick for the Korean national team as well, getting 12 caps since first being called up by Jurgen Klinsmann in June last year. He was also in the gold-medal winning Korean squad at the Asian Games last year, earning an exemption from Korea’s mandatory military service.

Hong is one of four Korean players active in the Bundesliga, alongside Lee, Union Berlin’s Jeong Woo-yeong and Bayern Munich’s Kim Min-jae.

His first Korean derby will come on Dec. 14, when Mainz are scheduled to host Bayern. He’ll see Kim a lot sooner, however, as Hong, Lee and Kim are all set to fly back to Korea in the next few days to join the national team for the September international break.

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