Home   >   Sports   >   Hong finalizes pre-World Cup plan

Hong finalizes pre-World Cup plan

March 11, 2014
The Korea national football team manager Hong Myung-bo, right, speaks during a press conference last week ahead of its friendly against Greece. He said selecting players for his World Cup squad is almost done. (Yonhap)

The Korea national football team manager Hong Myung-bo, right, speaks during a press conference last week ahead of its friendly against Greece. He said selecting players for his World Cup squad is almost done. (Yonhap)

By Kim Tong-hyung

The Korean national team’s schedule ahead of this summer’s World Cup is complete, with the Taeguk Warriors hosting the Tunisians on May 28 before traveling to Brazil.

Manager Hong Myung-bo is close to picking his squad for the World Cup although his depth in defenders and strikers continues to be a concern.

According to the Korea Football Association (KFA) on Monday, the Korean team will arrive in Brazil on June 12 (KST), five days before it faces Russia in its Group H opener in Cuiaba. It will set up its training camp in Foz do Iguacu, which is 1,100 kilometers north of Cuiaba.

Korea will face Algeria on June 22 in Porto Alegre and then Belgium, widely considered as the strongest team in the group, on June 26 in Sao Paulo.

Before heading to Brazil, the Korean team will stop in Miami on May 30 for a training session. Hong said he picked Miami over other American destinations such as Tampa and Orlando because it shares a time zone with Cuiaba and has a similar climate. The team is trying to find an opponent for a possible warm-up match in Miami.

”We will soon send members of our coaching staff to Miami to inspect facilities and other conditions. My plan is that we get a good training session there before moving to Foz do Iguacu,’’ Hong told reporters at KFA headquarters in Seoul.

The friendly match against Tunisia at the Seoul World Cup Stadium comes a day before Hong will announce his final 23-man squad for the World Cup.

Europe-based players such as Son Heung-min (Bayer Leverkusen), Lee Chung-yong (Bolton), Ki Sung-yeung (Sunderland), Koo Ja-cheol (Mainz) and Hong Jeong-ho (Augusburg) are likely to be featured barring injury. Veteran forward Park Chu-young, who is struggling to find minutes for English second-division club Watford, seems penciled as Hong’s target man in his favored 4-2-3-1 position.

While Hong has settled on a center back axis of Hong Jeong-ho and Kim Young-gwon (Guangzhou Evergrande), he continues to tinker with the fullback positions. Han Kook-young, the search-and-destroy artist from Japanese club Shonan Bellmare, seems to have a leg up over competitors as Ki’s central midfield partner, although Hong may eventually consider a more experienced player here.

Jung Sung-ryong and Kim Seung-gyu are competing to be Hong’s starting goalkeeper, while Kim Shin-wook, Lee Keun-ho and Kim Bo-kyung are the important skill players likely to come off the bench.

Korea, which will be making its eighth consecutive appearance, got out of the group stages in two of the past three World Cups, including a semifinal appearance in the tournament held at home in 2002.

Hong’s men defeated an under-strength Greek squad 2-0 in a friendly in Athens last week.