Against Jordan, the biggest crisis to overcome is the reversal of mood in Hong Myung-bo in crisis and the advance to the World Cup finals. Attention is focusing on Hong’s “Plan B” to fill the void at a time when captain Son Heung-min failed to recover from injury.
The Korean national soccer team conducted an adaptation training session at an auxiliary stadium near Amman International Stadium from 6 p.m. on Sunday (local time). As the training session was hurriedly replaced with an indoor recovery training session due to a severe traffic jam in Jordan on Wednesday, the team will engage in an outdoor training session for the first time two days before the game. The team delayed the training session by one hour to prepare for a traffic jam and arrived at the training site with an escort from the local police.
Twelve players, including Lee Kang-in, Hwang In-beom, and Kim Min-jae, who arrived at dawn at the training session of about 20 minutes, warmed up in the recovery group, while the remaining 14 conducted normal training. Since then, the training has been conducted behind closed doors.
■Prepare plan B for Son Heung-min…”It’s important to show how much performance you’ll show”
Coach Hong Myung-bo, who first met with reporters before training, pointed out about “Plan B” mentioned at the press conference for the announcement of the list, “It is important what kind of performance the player who went out on behalf of him will show.”
“There is a sense of lack of training or practice in terms of time to try tactical change from the beginning, so it will be important how much the first player does and at what timing we make tactical changes,” he stressed.
The absence of Son does not just create a gap in performance. Son has played a central role in setting the mood and mood of the national team before and after the training session. Against this backdrop, Hong pointed to “one-team spirit” as the core element.
“Since Son has played a very pivotal role in the national team, I think there must be enough parts (of his absence), but in the end, I think what matters is how much he can make up for it as a team. Consequently, that is the key to the upcoming match against Jordan,” Hong said.
■The captain’s armband is Kim Min-jae…”Controlling the overall situation and considering the relationship with the players”
Under Hong Myung-bo, captain Son Heung-min played full time in both games against Palestine and Oman. Attention was also drawn to who will wear the captain’s armband in the sudden vacancy, but Hong Myung-bo chose Kim Min-jae as his captain and Lee Jae-sung as his vice captain in a meeting with the coaches.
Coach Hong first cited Kim Min-jae as the reason for choosing him as the captain, saying, “It is a position where you can control the overall situation of the game, see the flow of the game, and coach.” In addition, harmony among the players of the national team was also considered. Coach Hong added, “There was a general opinion that Kim Min-jae should be the captain because there were many new young players this time, and as we did it, there was a relationship.” 먹튀검증
Kim Min-jae played in the A-match wearing the captain’s armband against Tunisia in October last year. At that time, Son Heung-min was excluded from the starting line due to groin injury, and Kim Min-jae became the captain of the national team for the first time since his debut, showing solid defensive organization and leading the team to a 4-0 complete victory.