"I'm Unemployed Right Now!"... National Teqball Player Lee Jun-seok Goes All-In on Teqball

The journey of South Korean teqball national team captain Lee Jun-seok (27) to wear the Taegeuk mark on his chest reads like a heartwarming human drama.

He played football from elementary school until age 21, competing in the K4 League, and later kept his athletic career alive as a jokgu player.

Although he was working as a contract production worker at a major corporation and was on the verge of transitioning to a regular employee, he boldly gave up his livelihood upon hearing that teqball had been adopted as an official Asian Games event.

His declaration of "I'm unemployed right now!" resonated all the more deeply when Lee shouted it today (September 17) after sweeping all five matches without dropping a single set to finish undefeated in the men's singles group stage at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, held at the Higashi Sports Center in Nagoya, Japan.

Having secured four consecutive wins in the group stage and defeating Japan's Wase Akinori 2-0 in the final match of the group stage—a Korea-Japan showdown—Lee said, "I thought to myself that I absolutely could not lose this match."

Lee shouted cheers more loudly and performed bigger celebrations than in any other match.

It was because he keenly felt the immense value of the Taegeuk mark, which he earned by staking everything.

Overcoming difficult circumstances within the teqball national team is not unique to Lee alone.

Lee Tae-bin (25), who partners with Lee in the men's doubles, quit his job in jewelry design for the sake of the Taegeuk mark, and Kim Eun-jun (23), who will compete in the mixed doubles, also left a pharmaceutical company's jokgu team once he became a national representative.

In a way, Jang Eun-seo (21), a student at Korea National Sport University, is the only member of the teqball national team with a secure place to return to.

Their training environment was utterly poor.

Despite earning national team qualifications, they failed to enter the Athletes' Village due to failing certain criteria, and sweated under the scorching outdoor sun until they managed to rent an indoor court in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, through an acquaintance.

During the monsoon season, whenever it rained, they would hurriedly pack up the tables set up at public facilities to briefly escape the rain, enduring a grueling routine of setting the tables back up as soon as it cleared.

However, their passion was second to none.

To learn techniques from European powerhouses, Lee forked out his own money and headed to Hungary last April.

He reached out blindly to a Hungarian player via social media (SNS) to ask for one-on-one private coaching, mastering the European players' signature ball-spin techniques and strong header training methods to forge his greatest weapon.

Lee confessed, "I feel like I've lived my life harder than ever while preparing for teqball. It makes me wonder what it would have been like if I had worked this hard when I played football. I tried to maintain my confidence until the end because I felt I would regret this time too much if I got nervous and lost here."

As the eldest brother and captain of the national team leading his teammates, he said he countless times imagined standing on the top step of the podium at this tournament.

If he wins a medal, he unhesitatingly picked "a trip with his mother" as the thing he wants to do most.

Expressing his deep affection, he said, "I want to escape the hell of training for about a week and rest deeply without any worries. Above all, I want to take my mother, who suffered so much to support me, on a trip to a quiet place and clear the air over our past struggles."

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.