It is a surreal Monday morning at Wolves’ training ground. The sight of the South Korea icon Park Ji-sung and Patrice Evra – best friends since their days at Manchester United – serving drinks and Korean delicacies from a coffee truck plastered with prints of Hwang Hee-chan is enough to trigger a few double takes. “If the coffee is not good, he is the person you blame … I’m just mixing the water,” Evra says, pointing at Park and breaking into that booming, infectious laugh.
Throughout the day first-team players and club staff queue to order food – choco pies and rice cookies from Taegeukdang, the oldest bakery in Seoul, prove a big hit – and drink coffee from cups decorated with a sticker of Hwang celebrating scoring for Wolves, something that has become commonplace this season. Fábio Silva is his first teammate to sample the coffee, with José Sa, Hwang’s closest friend at the club, not far behind.
