Wolves reportedly eyeing 17-year-old Daejeon midfielder Yun Do-yong

Premier League club Wolverhampton Wanderers are reportedly interested in possibly signing Daejeon Hana Citizen's 17-year-old midfielder Yun Do-yong.

Team K League's Yun Do-yong, left, vies for the ball with Tottenham Hotspur captain Son Heung-min during a Coupang Play Series match at Seoul World Cup Stadium in western Seoul on July 31. [YONHAP]

Wolverhampton Wanderers are reportedly eyeing 17-year-old midfielder Yun Do-yong of K League 1 team Daejeon Hana Citizen.

Wolves Fancast, a Wolves fan website, shared an X post on Tuesday saying that the Premier League team is interested in the prospect.

Yun went through Daejeon’s U-15 and U-17 teams and made his K League 1 debut with the club in January of this year. He has mostly played as a right winger in the 2024 season, picking up one goal and two assist across 14 league matches as of Tuesday.

The Daejeon midfielder also earned 13 caps at the U-17 level where he recorded nine goals and one assist.

He proved his potential during the U-17 AFC Asian Cup in 2023, where he scored four goals in the tournament to lead Korea to a runner-up finish and end as the second-top scorer of the competition.

Typically playing as a winger at Daejeon, he has accurate crosses and one-on-one skills with which he breaks through the defense in the center.

He has only scored one goal in the K League this season, but he still became the youngest player, at 17 years, 10 months and four days, to score for Daejeon with his goal against Gwangju FC on Sept. 1.

He also made it into the Team K League squad — consisting of K League players picked by fans and coaches for the sole purpose of playing an exhibition Coupang Play Series match against Tottenham Hotspur — in July.

A departure to Wolves this year would mean joining the Premier League side in the ongoing 2024-25 season and leaving a struggling Daejeon that sits in 11th place in the 12-team table. The club only has five more league fixtures left until the end of the 2024 regular season.

Finishing in 11th place will force Daejeon to play in the promotion-relegation playoffs against a K League 2 side to decide which teams secure a berth in the top tier next season.

Daejeon earned promotion to the first division in 2022 and finished in eighth place last year, but have struggled throughout the 2024 campaign.

BY PAIK JI-HWAN [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]