Olympic soccer team poised to strike in Athens

South Korean Olympic soccer team, which will have its first A-match of men’s soccer with the host country, Greece, at 2:30 a.m. Thursday (Korean time), had its first team training after entering Thessaloniki and checking the players’ conditions in Kalamaria Stadium.

South Korea ensured their preparedness by being the first of the Olympic soccer entries to set up the field camp and having the training during times similar to the actual game time. Jung Gyung-ho, the wild card substitute for injured player Kim Nam-il (Jeonnam), joined the exercise and warmed up with the juniors.

The players who arrived in Thessaloniki the day before completed their 1-hour, 30-minute-training by first warming up, engaging in strategic training and having a self-practice game for the last 20 minutes.

Kim Ho-gon, the coach of Korean team, expressed his satisfaction after the first training, saying, “Above all, I feel relieved because the heat is not as severe as I had worried. The weather here in Thessaloniki is cooler and less humid than I thought.”

However, coach Kim said, “Greece is paying careful attention to security to prevent the disclosure of its record. They even hesitated to open their practice games, and it is not known when they will arrive in Thessaloniki.” He added, “It is inconvenient not to have sufficient knowledge of the records of Greece.”

South Korea will divide their training time into two times from today and work predominantly on strategic training and self-practice games, for set-plays in the morning and increase in scoring in the afternoon.

Coach Kim said, “We are putting the emphasis of training on increasing the accuracy on the centering that comes from the sides.”