Jeong Woo-yeong gets goal, assist as Stuttgart steal second to end Bundesliga season

Stuttgart's Jeong Woo-yeong, left, scores to make it 3:0 during a Bundesliga match between Stuttgart and Mochengladbach at the MHPArena in Stuttgart, Germany on Saturday. [AP/YONHAP]

Jeong Woo-yeong finished the Bundesliga season on a high note on Saturday, scoring his second goal of the season and picking up an assist to help lift VfB Stuttgart above Bayern Munich to second place on the table.

Jeong, 24, came on in the 57th minute of Saturday’s game against Monchengladbach in Stuttgart, Germany, with the home side already up 2-0.

The Korean midfielder did not hang around, pushing the score to 3-0 in the 75th minute and assisting Silas for No. 4 in the 83rd.

The win saw Stuttgart jump up to second on the Bundesliga table, leap-frogging Kim Min-jae’s Bayern Munich, who ended a disappointing season with a 4-2 loss to Hoffenheim.

With Saturday’s contributions, Jeong ends the 2023-24 Bundeliga season, his first with Stuttgart, with two goals and three assists, having scored two weeks earlier on May 4.

It’s been a quiet season for Jeong, who has spent most of the season on the bench for Stuttgart. He made 26 appearances, five of them as a starter, coming on as an often-late substitution to rack up a total of 617 minutes of playing time.

Over in Munich, Saturday’s loss marked an end to a difficult season for center-back Kim, who arrived in the Bundesliga considered one of the top defenders in the world and struggled to adapt. He fell out of the starting XI after the Asian Cup earlier this year, and has faced more criticism than praise for his appearances since then.

Kim did not play on Saturday.

Kim was the only of the Korean Bundesliga trio to lose on the last day of the season, with Lee Jae-sung’s Mainz beating Wolfsburg 3-1. The win pushed Mainz up to 13th, well clear of the relegation zone.

All three Bundesliga players are likely to be reunited in just a couple of weeks as they are all regular picks for the Korean national team. Korea, currently without a manager, face Singapore on June 6 and China on June 11 in two World Cup qualifiers.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]