Higher Class’ World Soccer than Asian Soccer

“Don’t become a frog in a well.”

Korea Olympic Soccer team confirmed its advance to the 2004 Athens Olympics with six sweeping victories. It’s the seventh time it advanced to the Olympics since the 1948 London Olympics, but Korea has never passed the group preliminaries in the Olympics.

How can we prepare for the dream of the first-ever Olympics medal? Experts similarly said, “This advance of straight wins is just an output in Asia. The world scale is bigger. We need to start from the beginning without self-conceit.”

2002 Sydney Olympics Coach, Heo Jeong-moo (Yong-in FC Principle Coach) pointed out, “The first thing is to collect information thoroughly after the group matching. We can deal with it when we know who the opponents are. It is also recommended to watch the games of the Euro (Europe Soccer Championship) 2004.” Heo had faced Spain without any scouting in the Sydney Olympics and was crushed, 0-3. In spite of two wins and one loss (1-0 to Chile, 1-0 to Morocco), Korea finally placed third in goal differentiation, not being able to enter the final eight.

KBS commentator and the professor of Sejong University, Lee Yong-soo advised, “Because Athens is hot with temperature over 40 degrees Celsius, we have to concentrate on physical training as well as analyzing the other teams.”

Former coach of Suwon Samsung, Kim Ho, urged, “Give chances to young players regardless of wild cards,” and Seoul FC Coach, Cho Kwang-rae remarked, “Teams which we will meet in Olympic will push us much harder from the mid-field compared to Asian teams, so we need to strengthen our mid-field position.”

Olympics team coach, Kim Ho-gon, formed the master plan for the Olympics. Preparing for the Olympics which starts from August 11, players will be gathered again in the beginning of July, and be experienced against powerful teams through a European training, have a return match with Japan on July 21, one or two exhibition matches with a South American team, and then head for Athens.

It is the important key who will be the three “Wild Cards” to maximize the capacity. Coach Kim already had Yoo Sang-cheol (Yokohama F Marinos) in mind as a mental leader and is considering the other two. An Olympics lot, for grouping which divides 16 national teams into four groups, will be conducted on June 9.

Meanwhile, Korea Football Association announced on May 13 that they will give 400 million won as a prize to Korea Olympics team for its fifth consecutive appearance in the Olympics with its sweeping victories and shutout performances.

Jong-Koo Yang yjongk@donga.com