Участник:Klinsmann to target the Asian Cup
The South Korean national soccer team will begin the 2026 North and Central American World Cup qualifiers as the best member.
The Korea Football Association announced on the 6th the list of 23 national team players who will play in the first and second rounds of the second Asian qualifying round for the North-Central American World Cup. World Cup.
South Korea will start the first round of the second qualifying round against Singapore at the Seoul World Cup Stadium at 8 p.m. on the 16th, and will play the second round against China in Shenzhen, China, at 9 p.m. on the 21st.
Unchanging national team roster... No more experiments
In the second qualifying round of the World Cup, 36 countries will compete in nine groups of four teams, with 18 countries ranked first and second in each group advancing to the third qualifying round, and will also qualify for the Asian Cup finals in 2027 Saudi Arabia.
Jurgen Klinsmann, who leads the national team, selected "captain" Son Heung-min (Tottenham) and other players he has been steadily calling.
There has been no change except for Kim Joon-hong's absence from the October A match list and goalkeeper Song Bum-keun (Shonan Belmare). Song Bum-keun was excluded from the national team due to injury, and it is difficult to give much meaning because he is not the main goalkeeper.
Starting with Son Heung-min, European players such as Kim Min-jae (Bayern Munich), Lee Kang-in (Paris Saint-Germain), Hwang In-beom (Turbena Zvezda), Lee Jae-sung (Mainz), Hwang Hee-chan (Wolverhampton), and Cho Kyu-sung (Mitt Whelan) were called without fail.
Up until September, Klinsmann picked new faces such as Kim Ji-soo (Brentford), Lee Dong-kyung (Ulsan) and Yang Hyun-joon (Celtic) to give them a chance.
However, from October, he returned to the players he chose at the beginning of his appointment. There was also a prospect that they would conduct a bold experiment once again, given that the opponents of the second qualifying round of the World Cup are Singapore and China, which are relatively weak, but the results did not change.
This can be interpreted as coach Klinsmann's full-fledged strengthening of his organizational power aimed at the 2023 Asian Cup, which is less than three months away from the opening.
When pointed out that there was no experimental lineup after the A match in October, he said, "We don't have many chances to play in the future," adding, "I want to give many players a chance, but the second qualifying round of the World Cup and the Asian Cup are scheduled."
After the second qualifying round of the World Cup, the priority may be to reduce change and increase tactical completion because there is no right opportunity to convene the best members for the time being until the Asian Cup is held.
Coach Klinsmann has been criticized for his record of the most winless wins since his debut as the national team's head coach with only three draws and two losses in five games since his inauguration, but he expressed his extraordinary determination, saying he would be evaluated based on his Asian Cup performance.
However, in order to maintain the national team's strength, it is a task to manage the physical strength of European players who are forced to go back and forth between the club and the national team. He also has to pay attention to injury management as he has to go on an expedition to China that is notorious for its roughness.
Now, attention is being paid to what color of soccer coach Klinsmann, who will play on the real stage such as World Cup qualifiers and Asian Cups, not warm-up matches.