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One of the 30 photos provided by Sports Seoul to the 40th anniversary exhibition of the K League. Lee Dong-guk (Pohang) and Ahn Jung-hwan (Busan Daewoo), the main players of the crowd, pose together in a match in the eastern region of the 18th Asian Club Championship held at Stillyard in Pohang on February 11, 1999. Sports Seoul DB

There was a moment that made reporters' heads tilt at the media preview of the "K League 40th Anniversary Exhibition" held at Times Square in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul, on the 21st. Soon after the 1998 World Cup in France, stories of Ahn Jung-hwan, Lee Dong-guk and Ko Jong-soo, who led the K-League Renaissance, came out.

The exhibition described the 40-year history of the K-League as "Universe" and divided into 13 sections to illuminate the K-League in various ways. Among them, the HORIZON section lists photos along the 30-meter-long wall, allowing visitors to look at the K-League's 40-year history in order. The emblem of the winning team was engraved from 1983 to 2023, and major photos were placed along with photos from each period.

A total of 83 incidents and 74 photos were inserted, and several were provided by each media company's database. Sports Seoul provided the most 30 photos. And one of the photos that drew attention was that Busan Daewoo Ahn Jung-hwan and Pohang's Lee Dong-guk posed ahead of their showdown at the Asian Club Championships on February 11, 1999.

In the same year, Korean soccer lost to the Netherlands 0-5 in the group stage of the World Cup in France, and wept amid crushing defeat. However, fans moved to the K-League stadium to encourage Korea to save its soccer. Along with Lee Dong-gook, who was a teenage player during the World Cup in France, "Terrius" Ahn Jung-hwan and "Genius Midfielder" Ko Jong-soo (then Suwon Samsung) were at the center of success in the league.

Not only did he gain attention for his outstanding talent but he also stole the hearts of female fans. Busan Gudeok Stadium, the home of Ahn Jung-hwan, saw an unusual scene where he was greeted by fans with chairs going beyond capacity to track and field. Thanks to the spectators, the K-League surpassed 2 million for the first time in 1998 and successfully attracted spectators until the following year. However, the era of troika in the K-League came to an end as Lee Dong-guk left for Germany and Ahn Jung-hwan left for Italy, respectively.

What's interesting is that despite their enormous presence, they can't find pictures of "three shots" that they took together. "In order to get the pictures in the early days of the league, we received DBs from media companies and films from places that were not converted into DBs, and went through the printing process," said Won Ki-seok, director of the Korea Football Association and former editor-in-chief of Sports Seoul. "Lee Dong-guk, Ahn Jung-hwan and Ko Jong-soo led the renaissance in the K-League, but they couldn't find pictures taken together anywhere." "Many media companies tried to prepare a project to illuminate three people together, but it seems that it was not easy to recruit them at the same time. If they find three shots of them, it is a sense of scoop," he added.