The first roster of the newly starting Korean national soccer team ‘Klins Manho’ has been announced. On March 13, the Korea Football Association announced the 26-member national team list for the 2nd A-match against Colombia on the 24th and Uruguay on the 28th. This is the debut match of the Korean national soccer team by coach Jurgen Klinsmann (Germany).
Coach Klinsman rose to the new command tower of the national soccer team on February 27 and entered Korea on the 8th of this month. As expected, most of the players who played an active role in the Qatar World Cup team were listed as they were in the first roster, as expected. As Korean football reached the round of 16 at the 2022 Qatar World Cup, led by coach Paulo Bento, attention is focused on how different Coach Klinsman will show by leading the same players.
Compared to the Qatar World Cup roster, only two spots have changed. Yoon Jong-gyu (Seoul) and Hong Chul (Daegu) were eliminated, and Ki-je Lee (Suwon) and Hyun-gyu Oh (Celtic) were selected. Both new players already have national team experience. Lee Ki-je played 2 A-matches in the Qatar World Cup 2nd qualifying round while he was in Bentoho, and Oh Hyun-gyu played 1 A-match and did not make it to the final member of the World Cup, but accompanied him to Qatar as a ‘reserve member’.
If you look at the list of the 1st class of Klins Manho, you can see that there was a lot of concern about fullback resources. Yoon Jong-kyu and Hong-cheol, who were eliminated, and Lee Ki-je, who were newly boarded, are all fullbacks. The national team’s full backs are currently dominated by Jeonbuk Hyundai’s left and right wings Kim Jin-soo and Kim Moon-hwan, but both players have failed to show impressive performance in their team since the opening of the K-League this season, and it is difficult to guarantee their position in the national team.
Also, except for Kim Moon-hwan, the full backs of the national team are all veterans over 30 years old, Kim Tae-hwan, Kim Tae-hwan, and Lee Gi-je, so it is time to prepare for a generational change in the long term. Currently, fullbacks who combine offense and defense are showing a famine throughout the K-League, so it is urgent to find players.
The front-line striker competition to be the vanguard of the ‘Cleansman Table Attack Soccer’ is also eye-catching. Coach Klinsman revealed his firm commitment to attacking football, saying at his inaugural press conference, “I prefer attacking football. I prefer winning 4-3 rather than winning 1-0.”
Hwang Eui-jo (FC Seoul), Cho Kyu-seong (Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors), and Oh Hyun-gyu (Celtic), who were selected for the first season of Cleansman, are all ‘Bento’s children’. Hwang Eui-jo grew up as a starting player for the A team at Bento, and Cho Kyu-seong and Oh Hyeon-gyu were the first players selected by Bento coach.
Hwang Ui-jo was the striker who started the most matches in Bento Lake, but in the Qatar World Cup, Hwang Ui-jo fell into a slump and Cho Kyu-seong took the starting position from the second match of the group stage against Ghana. Cho Kyu-seong announced the birth of a star by scoring multiple goals in a World Cup match against Ghana, the first Korean player to do so. 슈퍼벳 토토
Both players had ups and downs after the World Cup. Hwang Ui-jo had to temporarily leave the European stage and return to the K-League on loan to recover his performance and maintain a sense of real combat as his sluggish performance at Olympiacos in Greece was prolonged. After the World Cup, Cho Kyu-sung failed to go directly to Europe and stayed with his team, Jeonbuk.
However, Hwang Eui-jo has yet to recover his performance at FC Seoul. Even though coach Ahn Ik-soo starts 3 games in a row from the opening game and guarantees enough playing time, he is often isolated in the front and is sluggish.
Hwang Ui-jo started in the Seoul-Ulsan match on the 12th, which was the first match Klinsman directly observed the K-League, but Hwang Eui-jo failed to impress in front of the new national team coach. He kept his position thanks to the replacement of the national team coach and the premium of the last World Cup, but with the current form, it would not be strange even if he was eliminated from the national team.