Coach Stielike to use various attack strategies at Asian Cup

"Striking power is the problem."

Korean national football coach Uli Stielike announced final entry list for the Asian Cup that will be held in January next year in Australia. Lee Jung-hyup (Sangju FC) got on board in a surprise, while Cho Young-cheol (Qatar SC) and Lee Keun-ho (El Jaishi SC) were also listed as strikers.

The latest strikers’ list is assessed as the least competence among Asian Cup strikers ever. This compares with 2012 Asian Cup (Kim Shin-wook, Yeom Ki-hun, Yoo Byung-soo and Ji Dong-won), 2007 (Lee Dong-kuk, Lee Keun-ho, Lee Chun-soo, Cho Jae-jin, Choi Sung-kuk, Woo Sung-yong) and 2004 (Kim Eun-joong, Seol Ki-hyun, Ahn Jung-hwan, Lee Dong-kuk, Cha Doo-ri). The past strikers had the image of living up to their names and were stronger strikers.

To complement lack of striker competence, Stielike can utilize Sohn Heung-min (Leverkusen) as one-top. Sohn has the best goal sense among others in the national team. He excels in creating space and shooting with fast speed. One-top is a difficult position since the player has to engage in body fight with defenders from both side. Consequently, Sohn is likely to play as both striker and striker midfielder based on the zero-top tactic (a tactic to use midfielder instead of typical striker). This strategy will be used in a friendly match with Saudi Arabian team on January 4.

If the Sohn tactic fails, Stielike will likely use zero-top headed by Cho Young-chul. On Cho, the coach said he is an optimized striker in a zero-top tactic. This was proven. At a friendly match with the Paraguay team, Cho and Kim Min-woo (Sagan Tosu), Nam Tae-hee (Lekhwiya SC) and Lee Chung-yong (Bolton) led the team win by 2-0 through organic passes suggestive of Spanish Tiki-taka tactic.

Finally, if the second-tier strikers show weak performance and rival players put forward defense tactic, Lee Jung-hyup can be utilized. The sole target-style striker, Lee will be utilized by dispatching four second-tier strikers to maximize attack ability, and at the same time exhausting physical strength of rival defenders. This was proven at a match with the Jordan team to which the Korean team won 1-0.