Nat’l football coach unfazed by lack of training time before World Cup qualifiers

- By now, Paulo Bento, head coach of the South Korean men’s national football team, is accustomed to not having much time to train before World Cup qualifying matches.

The coach has once again been handed the tough task of putting his players on the same page after just one full training session together. Bento opened his training camp Monday, but some of his most important players, including his longtime captain and Tottenham Hotspur star Son Heung-min, only arrived home Tuesday night because of their weekend club obligations. The first full practice only took place Wednesday morning.

Bento had to deal with the same situation in September and October: camps opening Monday, players arriving Tuesday, having their first full session Wednesday and then playing Thursday.

South Korea will host the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 8 p.m. Thursday at Goyang Stadium in Goyang, just northwest of Seoul. It will be the teams’ fifth match in Group A of the final Asian qualifying round for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Paulo Bento, head coach of the South Korean men’s national football team, watches his players during a training session at the National Football Center in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, on Nov. 10, 2021. (Yonhap)

South Korea will next face Iraq in Qatar, as a neutral venue, next Tuesday.

The UAE players arrived in South Korea last weekend and began training before their hosts did. But Bento insisted Wednesday, in his prematch press conference, that the situation won’t be an issue and he won’t make excuses.

“More or less, we had the same conditions that we did in previous training camps,” Bento said at an online session from the National Football Center in Paju, 30 kilometers north of Seoul. “It’s not easy to prepare for a game just with one training session. But this is the condition we have. And we should prepare for the game in this condition. We’ve tried to prepare the strategy in the best possible way.”

South Korea are in second place with eight points, two back of Iran, with six matches to go. The UAE are winless with three draws and one loss.

The top two countries from each of the two groups in the final phase will qualify for the World Cup. The two third-place teams will meet in a playoff, and the winner will then reach the last-chance intercontinental playoff.

South Korea have played at every World Cup since 1986 in Mexico.

Bento will be without his main striker Hwang Ui-jo, who is sidelined with a hamstring injury. In the absence of the FC Girondins de Bordeaux forward, Bento selected an international rookie, Kim Gun-hee of Suwon Samsung Bluewings.

“We tried to involve him as much as possible in our way of playing and our style, and give him the tools to understand how we play,” Bento said of his first full session with Kim. “But of course, it’s not easy for him to understand everything in one or two training sessions. We know him. We’ve followed him for a long time. He’s a player with good technical skills, has good movements inside the box and between lines, and we’ll see how he can help us.”

Bento stayed mum on exactly how Hwang can be replaced on offense.

“We have players who can play in that position,” he said. “Tomorrow, we have time to decide what will be the options to replace him.”

On defense, South Korea will be without the usual center back Kim Young-gwon, who is dealing with a calf injury.

Right fullback Lee Yong said Wednesday he wasn’t overly concerned with Kim’s absence, as important as he is to the national team’s backline.

“We have other options in his position, and they’re in fine form now,” Lee said. “At every training camp, we focus on doing things we can do well and on preventing the opponents from doing their thing.”

Lee, 34, has also been a part of the past two World Cup teams. South Korea had trouble in the final qualifying rounds for those two tournaments, coming a lot closer to missing out on automatic berths than many may realize.

The current squad has had its share of issues, but Lee said he feels this year’s team is a lot stronger.

“I think we’ve been able to stay true to our identity on the field,” Lee said. “Though we missed some opportunities to get three points, I think we’re still moving in the right direction.”