The Korean National Soccer Team(photo from http://blog.naver.com/twgwjlul)
The third Asian qualifier between South Korea and Turkmenistan took place in the Seoul World cup Stadium on Feb. 06, 2008. In this game, South Korea beat Turkmenistan 4-0. With this landslide, South Korea would be in a good position for advancing to the final regional qualifying round.
From the left, Young-pyo Lee, Ji-sung Park, Ki-hyeon Seol
(Photo from http://sportalkorea.com/)
This game attracted attentions of the Korean soccer fans before the game because of the three English Premier Leaguers, Ji-sung Park (27) of Manchester United, Ki-hyeon Seol (29) of Fulham and Young-pyo Lee (31) of Tottenham Hotspur visited Korea. Their plays were enough to answer the expectations of the fans and had important roles to save the South Korean head coach, Jung-moo Huh from a sinking mood and the team from the thirst for win. Defender Tae-hee Kwak (27, Jeonnam Dragons) shook the net of goalpost and the fans with a header at 43 minute in the first half and Seol add one at 12 minute in the second half. Furthermore, Park also showed his talents by shooting a ball in the goalpost with accuracy at 25 minute in the second half and Seol made one more at 38 minute in the second half.
Actually, this game was amid lots of expectations and criticism of the pubic and the critics. Because the national team had scored no goal since Huh became the new head coach for the team in December 2007, this match was a crucial not only for Huh, but also the Korean national soccer team. South Korean soccer players have failed to score during the past seven months since it won over Indonesia on July 18 2007 for an Asian Cup. However, the result of this game exceeded the hope of the public.
Even though Korea won a victory in this game, I felt some absences from this game. First of all, in terms of defense, there were some situations which made people be in suspense. Expect for the Nam-il Kim, the captain, all other defenders had lack of experiences in this kind of big match. They played in A match only one or two times. Through this game, they showed some mistakes which almost made lose a goal due to the mistake of ball trapping and misreading the other players’ plays. And this game seemed to overly depend on the three English Premier Leaguers, Ji-sung Park (27) of Manchester United, Ki-hyeon Seol (29) of Fulham and Young-pyo Lee (31) of Tottenham Hotspur. It is an obvious truth that they played very well in this game, but other players’ plays were out of the interests of the press and the fans. Although people desired to watch their plays and so they visited Korea to meet the expectations, how about did the coach give a chance to other players for experiences this kind of big game?
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