The first team of Hong Myung-bo set an anchor in earnest. Under the new national team coach, who will lead the defense line.
Coach Hong Myung-bo’s Korean national soccer team will play the first match of the 2026 FIFA North-China World Cup Asian regional qualifying round against Middle East ambush Palestine at Seoul World Cup Stadium at 8 p.m. on the 5th. After that, the national team will move to Oman and play the second match at 11 p.m. on the 10th (Korea time) at the Muscat Sultan Qaboos Stadium in Oman.
Ahead of the two consecutive September matches, Team Hong Myung-bo conducted its first convocation training session at Goyang Stadium on Wednesday afternoon. A total of 19 players participated in the first day’s convocation training, with only Lee Jae-sung and Um Ji-sung among the European players. Key players, including Son Heung-min, Lee Kang-in, Kim Min-jae and Hwang Hee-chan, will join the national team one after another on the evening of February 2 or three days after completing their team’s schedule.
a fresh-start defensive competition on the side
Under Hong, the national team made changes by selecting new faces to solve the problem of side defense in earnest. The national team has always had concerns about side defense. Various resources were put to the test through many coaches, but they did not get a passing score. After Lee Young-pyo and Cha Du-ri, outstanding resources such as Kim Jin-soo, Kim Tae-hwan, Lee Yong, and Hong Cheol were in charge of side defense, but they did not have the resources to replace them.
As a result, Hong showed concern for generational change in the side defense after the appointment of the national team coach, which led to a new selection. Starting with Seol Young-woo, who has been reborn as a fullback of the national team, Hwang Moon-ki and Hwang Jae-won were listed on the right defense, while Choi Woo-jin and Lee Myung-jae joined the list on the left defense. Kim Moon-hwan (Daejeon), who rejoined the national team following March and June and gave a big boost to the right defense, was unfortunately excluded from the list due to injury.
Coach Hong excluded veteran defenders who were in charge of the side of the existing national team, and took the change by convening a large number of resources that looked forward to the present and the future. Some say that such a list is fresh and gives the national team a new competitive edge, but others say that they are anxious because a large number of inexperienced resources have been selected on the big stage of the final qualifying round for the World Cup.
In fact, Seol Young-woo, who has played the most matches in the latest national team roster, has played 16 matches. Hwang Jae-won, who supports this, has two matches and Lee Myung-jae, one match, which lack experience. In addition, Hwang and Choi are the first players to cross the threshold of the national team. There is no doubt about them in terms of their performance, but in the third qualifying round, where there are many variables, there is no choice but to increase anxiety about their defensiveness due to their lack of experience.
After all, Hong’s experiential part depends on his tactical capabilities. He must figure out how to combine his side defense resources, which each have various strengths, and make him responsible for both offense and defense. He must also take care of the combination of secondary players, who are considered the team’s strongest, and the problem of teamwork with the central defense. 안전놀이터
“I think I was able to achieve this position through failures 10 years ago. I am grateful because I continued to overcome them and learned a lot along the way,” Hong told the media before the training. “There have been changes both internally and externally through various experiences. I learned a lot from experience and have grown into a coach,” he said.
Regarding the upcoming Palestinian match, he stressed, “I think it is a very important game for South Korea right now, rather than an important game for me personally. Since it is the third qualifying round of the World Cup, I think the Republic of Korea is the most important game right now, rather than individuals, because this one game is a game of whether the Republic of Korea can advance to the World Cup finals or not.”