Olympic Soccer Team Beat Japan 2-1

“It is not daydreaming to set up a goal of 5th consecutive advancing to the Olympics, and to acquire the first medal in the Olympics.”

The Korean Olympic Team defeated Japan only after 4 years at Seoul World Cup Stadium on the 17th and will have a match against Hong Kong to compete for ticket to the 2003 Athens Olympic Asia qualifying round. Honk Kong marked 2 wins after the match against Sri Lanka on the 18th and is to play against Korea.

The Korean Team may advance to the Asian final round next March, crashing against the teams that qualified in the 2nd preliminary games for 4 tickets to the main round.

The potential of the Korean Team led by manager Kim Ho-gon is higher than ever. Mr. Kim appointed many players with diverse strategy, not sticking to the ‘3-4-3’ formation, and this resulted in success. The manager enhanced the rear space of the defensive line and utilized various attacking route to confuse the Japanese defense, grabbing an easy victory.

The two significant examples are as follows. Kim Du-hyeon (Suwon Samsung), who played side midfielder in the previous games was appointed to the center midfielder, and Kim Dong-jin (Anyang LG), the defensive left midfielder was told to go for 2-way attacking to get 2 goals.

However, there were tasks for supplement for the Olympic team after the game. They are lack of goal-determination and stamina. Korea acquired 2 goals in the first half with only 4 shootings, but failed to add more in the second half with 9 shootings by various strikers Jeong Jo-guk (Anyang), Namgung Do (Jeonbuk Hyundai), etc.

Manager Kim also recognized the problems and said, ˝I selected Namgung Do to reinforce scoring capacity, but there wasn`t enough time for training. I will improve scoring power by competition among the strikers. As for stamina, it was shown in the second half that many players got cramp in the legs to allow a goal. Improving the stamina is one of the critical issues.˝

The manager also added, ˝We have prepared thoroughly to play against Hong Kong to ensure our victory. The players will be called on the 25th to go through training with intensive focus on stamina reinforcement with other strategies.˝

Sang-Ho Kim hyangsan@donga.com