South Korean soccer veteran Lee Young-pyo announced his retirement on Thursday, saying he appreciates the great support he enjoyed over 27 years of playing the game.

Lee made his first public appearance in South Korea, after playing his final game late last month for the Vancouver Whitecaps FC in Major League Soccer. At a press conference held at the Korea Football Association headquarters in Seoul, the former left fullback said he feels he owes a major apology to fans.

“The biggest problem for South Korea in recent years has been defense, and I’ve been at the heart of it,” Lee said. “I cost the national team a lot of wins. My teammates often covered for my mistakes, and I also resorted to making excuses.”

Lee, 36, was being his typical, modest self. Despite his own, harsh assessment, Lee will likely go down as the best fullback South Korea has produced.

The crafty, versatile player was an integral part of South Korea’s historic run to the semifinals at the 2002 FIFA World Cup, which the country co-hosted with Japan. He also represented South Korea at the 2006 and 2010 World Cups, and retired from international play in early 2011. He ranks third on the all-time South Korean list with 127 caps.

Lee said he’d been preparing for his retirement for the past five to six years, and he finally had time to take a step back and look at his surroundings outside the football world.

“I finally realized just how many people were putting in hard work off the field while games were going on,” Lee said. “I received so much help from so many people, and I feel terrible because I don’t think I’ve ever given them as much help in return. It really embarrasses me.”

Asked to select the single most memorable game of his career, Lee said each one of the matches he played wearing the South Korean uniform was meaningful to him.

“Whenever I donned our uniform and listened to the national anthem before each game, I realized football isn’t just about myself but about the team,” Lee recalled. “I felt just how significant and exciting it is to represent a country in a football game.”

Since Lee left the national team for good in 2011, South Korea has had difficulty filling Lee’s void. The left fullback position has been a revolving door of one mediocre player after another, none of them able to match Lee’s combination of speed, smarts and vision at both ends of the field.

Lee offered a “glass-half-full” perspective on the situation, saying he feels the talent pool at the left fullback spot is actually deep.

“The way I see it is that our national team hasn’t been able to settle on one player because there are so many talented ones available,” Lee said. “I understand that the media see it differently, but I feel that there’s heated competition for playing time in that particular position.”

Lee started his club career in 2000 with Anyang LG Cheetahs (currently FC Seoul) in South Korea and went on to play for the Dutch giant PSV Eindhoven under Guus Hiddink, the South Korean national team head coach at the 2002 World Cup. Lee was teammates with midfielder Park Ji-sung on PSV, where they won two Dutch league titles.

He later followed Park to the English Premier League, becoming the second South Korean to join the English competition when he signed with Tottenham Hotspur in 2005.

After three seasons there, the fullback joined Borussia Dortmund in the German Bundesliga.

The well-traveled man also suited up for Saudi Arabia’s Al-Hilal and made 64 appearances there before joining Vancouver in 2011.

After playing the full 90 minutes in all 33 of his matches and missing just one contest, Lee was named the 2012 Whitecaps’ Player of the Year.

Lee said he thought about ending his club career back in South Korea, and it is something he would recommend younger players do when they start mulling retirement. Lee said he felt he was running out of gas ― not that his teammates noticed. (Yonhap News)