World Cup Needs 'Young and Fresh' Players More Than Ever, On the contrary, South Korea is concerned about 'aging'

World Cup Needs 'Young and Fresh' Players More Than Ever, On the contrary, South Korea is concerned about 'aging'

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"The finals of the North-China World Cup are likely to be held in hot weather. The average age of the squad should be low."
This is the principle of team formation proposed by a foreign candidate who applied for the post of coach last year when the Korea Football Association was looking for a new coach after Jurgen Klinsmann's dismissal. Should young Korean players participate in the World Cup finals? How young are Korea's current players.
Korea's men's soccer team led by head coach Hong Myung-bo played the eighth round of Group B in the third Asian qualifying round for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North Korea and the U.S. at Suwon World Cup Stadium at 8 p.m. on Saturday, and secured a 1-1 draw with Jordan. As Iraq, which had been chasing, failed to win points in the eighth round, Korea maintained its comfortable lead in the group. Korea ranks first in the group with 16 points, Jordan is second with 13 points, and Iraq is third with 12 points. Even if Korea performs poorly in the two upcoming matches in June, chances are high that it will advance to the finals directly.
As expected. Despite poor performance in the qualifying round, Korea had a high chance to advance to the finals from the beginning. From this year's event, the number of participating teams in the finals increased by 12 to 48, and the number of Asian tickets increased by two to 8.5. As the number of participating teams in the third qualifying round increased 1.5 times, many weaker teams joined in arithmetically. There was little chance that Korea, which had penetrated 10 more difficult qualifying rounds in a row, would fail this time.
Therefore, Korea had to prepare for the finals at the same time as well as rush to pass the third qualifying round. If the experiment for the finals took place at the same time, it is understandable if the team performed poorly in each of the third qualifying games. Korea lacked the experiment.
Then why do we need young athletes for the finals? Basically, it's because of the scorching heat. Although the finals for next year are called the North-China competition, the U.S. accounts for 11 out of 16 host cities. Among them, there are about six cities in the south-central region where heat is expected.
Notably, Hong has experienced with his whole body how dreadful the heat is in the U.S. The third group match of the 1994 U.S. World Cup took place in Dallas. Korea suffered a humiliating 2-3 defeat to Germany. At the time, Germany scored three goals in the first half, including Jurgen Klinsmann's stunning volley. However, as German players were visibly exhausted amid scorching temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius, Korea continued to pull together and scored goals by Hwang Sun-hong and Hong Myung-bo, who were on the verge of tying the game.
Chances are high that this year's event will take place in a hot place as well. Furthermore, the U.S. has become hotter than when Hong was a player due to global warming. When Korea hosted Copa America in June last year, I reconfirmed how hot it is in the U.S. The assistant referee in copyright versus Peru fainted due to dehydration. Uruguayan defender Ronald Araujo was replaced after suffering from dizziness due to dehydration during the match.
If you avoid the heat, there is also an issue of highlands. There is also a possibility that adaptation to highlands will emerge as an issue as players are playing in Mexican cities around 2,000 meters above sea level, including Mexico City.
If recovery of physical stamina becomes an important issue, what we need is resilience. If you think back to 32 years ago, there were five German starters in their 30s, four of whom played full time. Korea, on the other hand, left out all three of its starters in their 30s early on. After the switch, Korea's average age (26.5 years) was three years younger than Germany's starting age (29.6). Scorer Hwang Sun-hong was 26 years younger, and Hong Myung-bo was 25 years younger. Young age soon gave way to performance.
Currently, Korea has a high average age because there are not many generational changes, and there are many people in their 30s. Based on the time of the preliminary round, nine of them are in their 30s next year. Cho Hyun-woo, the oldest player who will turn 35 next year, is less burdensome as a goalkeeper, but Son Heung-min and Lee Jae-seong, who will turn 34, Park Yong-woo and Lee Myung-jae, and Hwang In-beom, Kim Min-jae, Cho Yoo-min and Hwang Hee-chan, who are the main players of the national team, will also turn 30 next year. Kwon Kyung-won, who is a quarterfinalist, will also play at 34, Joo Min-gyu at 36, and Jeong Seung-hyun at 32.
Although Hong consistently dispatches young players, he does not proactively experiment with them and give them an opportunity. Usually, he is hired primarily as a substitute. At least, Yang Min-hyuk, Bae Jun-ho, Lee Tae-seok and Yang Hyun-jun, who are under 23 years old, were deployed at the two consecutive games in March, taking the first step in generational change. More diverse combinations of experiments are needed during the remaining time.
If you look at the key players one by one, they all have no resources to replace immediately in the national team. However, it is not just Hong's fault because he failed to train younger players at the national team level. Since he failed to thoroughly experiment as a player through Klinsmann and the acting system, he is not the only one to blame. Even so, if Coach Hong had been appointed about 21 months before the World Cup finals, he should have accelerated the player experiment, but it is regrettable that the scope of the player experiment was narrow as if passing the third qualifying round was a top priority. 스포츠토토
Such performance and points would have been regrettable even if he had won by fully exploring and testing younger players. However, Hong played eight matches in his late 20s and 30s only to pass the competition. It would be too late if he starts preparing for the finals only after passing the preliminary round. If he does so, he will end up repeating his slump in the 2014 competition, which he could have justified by saying that he lacked time to prepare.