Football returns: Jeonbuk Motors v Suwon Bluewings in Korea's K-League – watch live!

31 min: Han Kyo-Won with a shot! But it’s brought back for offside, replays suggest correctly. It was a clever darting run from midfield to open the Suwon defence, but just marginally mistimed. Still, a warning sign from the home side.

28 min: The Canadian, Henry, goes through his opponent, Cho Kyu-Song, but the referee doesn’t deem it a foul.

Before Murilo tries to jink past one or two defenders near the edge of the box. Lovely feet from the Brazilian but he blazes his final effort high and wide!

25 min: Suwon forced to clear their lines once again. Jeonbuk are starting to harry and hurry their opponents in the centre of the park, their five-man midfield enjoying the edge on Suwon’s nominal four-man line up.

23 min: A nice passage of play from Jeonbuk who thread their passes patiently, before drawing a throw in deep near the corner flag.

They’re enjoying the larger portion of the early territory, the home side. Can they make that pay early on?

21 min: A nice cut and thrust starting to develop now, as both sides look to break quickly in transition and catch their opponents.

A first corner to Jeonbuk but it’s headed clear at the near post by the Suwon defence.

18 min: Suwon with another chance to hit on the counter, but they can’t make their passes stick and Jeonbuk stream forward in turn. It ends in a hopeful effort from Son Jun-Ho.

And at the other end a first real chance! Fine hands from the ‘keeper who gets down well to block Taggart’s goalbound effort.

Replays suggest he may have been in an offside position, the Australian striker, but it was nevertheless sharp goalkeeping from Sung Bum-Keun.

15 min: A shot of South Korean coach Paulo Bento up in the stands, watching on. Three’s definitely a Portuguese flavour overhanging this match, with Jose Morais – the only foreign manager in the K-League this season – also leaving an impact on Korean football, winning his first domestic title with Jeonbuk.

14 min: Another early sighter for Jeonbuk – both sides appear content to slowly adjust the shooting radars, but again, no huge concern between the posts for Dong-geon.

12 min: A second booking! Jeonbuk’s right back Lee Yong goes in the book for attempting to pull back his opposite number who had open pastures in which to run.

It’s been a little stop-start so far – let’s hope the whistle doesn’t dominate the early proceedings as both sides find their match fitness once again.

9 min: Suwon with a good chance to counter, but the ball in looking for Taggart is overhit and forces the striker wide. He then concedes the freekick with a raised boot in a challenge on Jeonbuk’s Choi Bo-Kyung.

And it’s earned Taggart a yellow card! He was unsure pre-game about the “talking to officials” rule, we can confirm, that caution was for the challenge alone.

8 min: Suwon’s Canadian centre half Doneil Henry wins a freekick. He was fortunate there perhaps, he almost look to have lost possession in a dangerous area, but the whistle saves his blushes.

5 min: An early touch for Taggart, last season’s K-League golden boot winner, who drops deep to collect, but both sides are guilty of giving away early possession. A few rusty touches as you can well imagine after a five-and-a-half month hiatus from league football.

Taggart fires off a first effort for Suwon – it’s a worm-burner from the left foot on the pivot from outside the box, but it rolls harmlessly wide of Song’s left-hand upright.

3 min: Jeonbuk looking to build some early sustained possession, and it’s the Brazilian, Murilo, who cuts in onto his right foot – his non-preferred foot – but his shot does not overly concern the Suwon ‘keeper.

He’s the only foreign player starting for Jeonbuk with Japan’s Kunimoto left on the bench. Two Australians and a Canadian start for Suwon.

1 min: And we’re away! It’s a new K-League season, but have we ever seen such internation interest in Korean football?

The home side playing left to right in a fetching “yellow highlighter” trikot, Suwon, right to left in their customary all blue kit.

The big match news is that Jeonbuk’s star Eredivisie recruit, the South African striker Lars Veldwijk has pulled up short, fitness wise, and will not lead the line for Jose Morais’ team.

Both these clubs have experienced an indifferent start to their respective Asian Champions League campaigns.

Suwon lost to a 90th minute winner away to Andres Iniesta’s Vissel Kobe, before a shock loss on the road to Malaysia’s Johor.

Jeonbuk lost 2-1 at home to Ange Postecoglou’s J-League champions, Yokohama F. Marinos, before salvaging a last-ditch draw on the road to the reigning A-League champions Sydney FC, 2-2.

It’s three years since the Suwon Bluewings beat their hosts today on their own patch – the World Cup stadium in Jeonju. It’s capacity 42,000 but without fans today. A smattering of the world’s press have been allowed in; everyone inside the stadium is wearing PPE equipment such as masks.

History is very much with Jeonbuk who boast 20 wins to Suwon’s seven historically, and they’ve had the wood on their opponents recently. As we know though, this is a completely different reality now, and whoever has been able to keep their preparations as unaffected as possible could have the edge, especially in terms of fitness.

Without further ado, to our team lists for tonight:

Jeonbuk Motors: (4-1-4-1)

Sung Bum-Keun; Lee Yong, Hong Jeong-Ho, Choi Bo-Kyung, Kim Jin-Su; Son Jun-Ho; Han Kyo-Won, Kim Bo-Kyung, Lee Sueng-Gi, Murilo; Cho Kyu-Song

Bench: Lee Bom-Yong, Jyung Hyok, T Kunimoto, Lee Dong-Gook, Choi Chul-Soon, Lee Soo-Bun

Suwon Bluewings: (3-4-3)

No Dong-Geon; Park Dae-Won, Doneil Henry, Lee Jong-Sung; Myeong Jun-Jae, Ko Seong-Beom, Terry Antonis, Hong Chul; Kim Min-Woo, Adam Taggart, Yeom Ki-Hun

Bench: Yang Hyung-Mo, Sulejman Krpic, Han Eiu-Kwon, Han Seok-Hee, Lee Sang-Hyun, Lee Pyong-Yee, Jang Ho-Ik

So – what does football in the post Covid-19 world look like? No fans in the stadium is the obvious first point, but in addition to this we’ll have no handshakes, conversation between players and officials will be restricted, and coaches will have to wear face masks.

A setback for sideline ranters, therefore – hopefully we’ll see more comedic mime antic from the coaching boxes. Players have also been advised “excessive spitting or blowing of the nose is prohibited”. The Korean equivalents of Jonny Evans and Papiss Cisse be warned.

There’s some confusion on the talking restrictions, as Adam Taggart told the BBC last week. “We are still waiting to get a full explanation on that. I do not speak Korean, you can still communicate with your teammates so I don’t really understand if we are going to get punished if we do talk [to officials]. You can just imagine there will be red cards left, right and centre if people are going to get punished for talking.”

Let’s hope not. Although fans of various iterations of “fast soccer” might go in for a full-field 7 v 7 style demonstration.

Ahead of this week’s round of games all 1100 players and staff in the K-League were tested and cleared for Covid-19. It’s a remarkable statistic compared to what’s happening in other countries around the world presently – let’s hope it stays that way.

For more on this historic fixture, here’s our eyes in the region John Duerden’s match preview:

Hi all! Richard Parkin in the chair, and delighted to be here as well. It’s been a seemingly interminable wait since we last had live football, and I for one am loving the chance to get a close-up look at the South Korean game.

Australian followers know these clubs reasonably well from Asian Champions League clashes across the years (and some of the players from national team age-level humiliations across the years), but for many international readers this could be their first K-League game. We’ll try to do it justice.

If you’re a passionate aficionado of the #KLeague don’t hestitate to share the wealth of your insights with us – join the conversation via email or twitter. We’d love to hear predictions, fun facts, general observations.