Seol Ki Hyeon & Park Ji Sung Go for the First Winning

Korea, A Co-host For The 2002 World Cup Games Can Win The First Game?

Foreign correspondents released the same prospects about the Korean national football team facing the first game with Poland at Busan stadium on June 4th. “Korea who got the ticket to the World Cup matches for the fifth times with no winning results is under the spotlight. Streets are filled with anticipations over the first winning”, said AP. “Korea is coming forward to get Poland as the first victim in the 2002 World Cup. It would not be easy for Korea to get over Poland, one of the powerful, but Korean people have high hopes on the match”, said AFP. Global football fans are all paying attention to Korea’s first game with Poland on June 4th which is called “the day of Asia” when Korea, Japan and China has a match. They are curious to know what results one of Asian football powers Korea would achieve at the home ground.

Guus Hiddink leading the Korean football team assured about Korea’s victory over Poland saying “There is a huge gap between Asian and European football players like we have seen from the match between Saudi Arabia and Germany. But we’ve been trying to get over the European wall, and are full of confidence that we can win Poland.”

The veteran coach’s strategy for Poland is breaking through its side attackers using fast players. Poland was weak at side attacks as its team line was broken by one of fast players Kim Dae-yi at its evaluation match with Sungnam Ilhwa on May 26th. Especially, its four-back defense players were not speedy at all. That is why the coach thought that Korea would be able to win Poland by attacking it with speedy and quick players such as Seol Ki Hyeon and Park Ji Sung. And he would put the veteran player Hwang Sun Hong at the middle to get a goal.

Jong-Koo Yang yjongk@donga.com