Korea should overcome 3 risks to advance to semifinals

Alert on three risks has been issued to the Korean national soccer team, which started its training in earnest on Tuesday at the Lakeside Stadium in Melbourne, Australia, ahead of a quarterfinal match against Uzbekistan on Thursday.

The first thing to be cautious of is injury. With fewer players capable of playing in the match, if the national team has additional players who suffer injury in the three remaining matches, it will inevitably have difficulties forming a group of best players. “As two players are already finished with the championship, team staff including its medical team have become highly wary of players’ injury,” a source in the team said.

Cold is another cause for concern. Ahead of the match against Kuwait, three players including Son Heung-min (Bayer Leverkusen) could not afford to play due to cold. Melbourne, the venue for the upcoming quarterfinal match, has widely fluctuating daily temperatures. It is hot summer weather during daytime, but the temperature drops significantly in the morning and evening. This offers an environment in which players can easily catch cold.

Managing yellow card warnings is also desperate. If a player receives two yellow card warnings, he is forced to sit out of the next match. Three players who had been given yellow card warnings in the match against Kuwait did not play in the match against Australia to manage the number of warnings. As the matches of the quarterfinals and above are held in tournament format, chances are high that plays will become more violent. If multiple players get yellow card warnings, the team will inevitably suffer loss of capacity in the semifinal or final.

Despite a flurry of risk factors, the team is in more upbeat mood than before. The team has regained confidence after beating the event’s host, Australia, and had adequate rest on Monday. Watchers say that Coach Uli Stielike might have reserved resources to prepare in the two matches ahead of the game against Australia. “Players’ sense of self-confidence and mood is in the best now since the start of the championship. We are sufficiently qualified to win the title,” goalie Kim Jin-hyeon (Cerezo Osaka) said.