Bae Junho picked as face of Stoke City amid transfer talk
Bae Junho’s old manager has called him up to play for South Korea under-23s rather than the senior team
Bae Junho has been selected for summer duty with South Korea under-23s, rather than the senior team, amid speculation over his club future.
The 21-year-old playmaker has been chosen as the lead model for Stoke City’s new kit for 2025/26, the first full season under new manager Mark Robins – the fourth boss that Junho has had during his 21 months in the Potteries.
The Seoul press is explaining the call-up of Jeon Jin-woo, aged 25 and playing for Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors in the K-League, as being linked to “the recent decline” in form of European-based players like Junho, Swansea’s Eom Ji-sung and Spurs’ QPR loanee Yang Min-hyeok, who have also missed out with the seniors this time around.
Junho’s representatives were in England for talks about his future in the spring and it remains to be seen what happens during the transfer window. He featured in more Championship matches in 2024/25 than any other player aged 21 and under.
He is expected to have suitors from around Europe but Stoke will know both his value and his potential – and they showed in January when they turned down an offer for Wouter Burger from Denmark that they can still say no if they think that is the right call.
Stoke are likely to have to wheel and deal to a certain degree as they rebuild over the next couple of months. There have already been nine farewells as five loan players have returned to their parent clubs and four senior men have been released.
Those four released players accounted for less than 5,000 of the minutes (10 per cent) that Stoke players clocked up in the league in 2024/25 while loan players – including Tom Cannon, who was recalled in January – accounted for nearly 11,000 minutes, or 24 per cent.
A club’s choice of model for a new kit can usually be a fair indication of being part of the plans for the year to come and that has normally been the case with Stoke – but not always.
Marko Arnautovic and Jon Walters among the models for the 2017/18 strip, for example, but Walters left for Burnley and Arnautovic moved to West Ham that July.
