Hong Myung-bo, who planned to conduct light recovery training outdoors on the first day of his arrival in Jordan, gave up outdoor training.
This is due to traffic congestion in Amman, Jordan’s capital, which is so severe that even drivers operating local taxi services are tongue-in-cheek.
The South Korean national soccer team, led by head coach Hong Myung-bo, will play the third Group B match against Jordan in the third Asian qualifying round for the 2026 FIFA North-China U.S. World Cup (co-hosted by Canada, the U.S., and Mexico) at Amman International Stadium in Jordan’s capital Amman on the 10th.
Currently, South Korea and Jordan are tied for four points, but Jordan is ranked first in Group B and South Korea is ranked second in the scoring record. Third-place Iraq also has four points, so there is a good chance that the ranking in Group B will be reversed depending on the results of the two consecutive games held during the A-match period in October.
When the main team from Korea arrived in Amman, Jordan, on the 7th local time, all but five overseas players gathered in Jordan. The national team was scheduled to unpack their luggage at their lodging and move to the training site where they had looked around in advance to conduct simple training sessions to recover their condition.
But a variable broke: Amman’s traffic.
The distance from the team’s accommodation to the hotel is about 3km, and the travel time is longer due to the busy traffic in downtown Amman.
According to an official from the Korea Football Association, some of the coaching staff, including head coach Hong Myung-bo, left for the training ground 40 minutes earlier, but decided to turn the car due to severe traffic jams.
Fortunately, the players had not yet departed from the hotel, and Hong Myung-bo decided that spending too much time on the road would not benefit the team’s conditioning, so he urgently revised his plan to conduct only simple recovery training at the fitness center in the hotel.
In fact, Amman’s traffic, especially during rush hour, is beyond imagination. There are many drivers who drive in ways other than common sense beyond the level of traffic jam, and because lanes are not clearly distinguished, there are many people who cut in. There are no cars that don’t honk their horns. 먹튀검증
Reporters who were waiting at the training site also used a taxi service to evacuate, but it took more than 20 minutes to get to the hotel, which is about 2 kilometers away. Even a driver in question called the taxi “crazy.”
Hong has faced unexpected variables since his first day in Jordan. Fortunately, the players were not in traffic and planned to undergo recovery training indoors, so it will not affect their condition significantly.