South Korean coach Dick Advocaat named a 23-man squad for the World Cup on Thursday,hoping to pull off a surprise.
SEOUL: South Korean coach Dick Advocaat named a 23-man squad for the World Cup on Thursday, and immediately said he was hoping to pull off a surprise. “We have a balanced squad, one that is capable of surprising a lot of people,” said Advocaat.
South Korea shocked the world in 2002 when they reached the World Cup semi-finals on home soil.
Advocaat’s line-up contains 10 veterans of 2002 along with a batch of gifted youngsters out to make an impression next month. Manchester United midfielder Park Ji-Sung, a 2002 star, will link up with Premiership colleague Lee Young-Pyo of Tottenham Hotspur, another 2002 veteran. He will anchor the defense with Choi Jin-Cheul, at 35 the oldest player in the squad.
Advocaat said he believed the team could reach the second round. “After that anything is possible. We have a strong squad in which all 23 players have a chance of making the playing XI,” he said, adding that in matches between the first choice XI and the second choice side, the result is always 0-0 or 1-0.
Advocaat took over as coach in October last year with a mission to restore confidence to a side that has struggled through a poor patch and sacked two managers since the World Cup.
The Dutchman, who had two stints as coach of the Netherlands and led them to the quarter-finals of the 1994 World Cup in the United States, admitted that team organisation was still a problem for the Koreans, notably in the defence.
History is against them, however. In five overseas World Cups, South Korea have yet to win a single game. That will have to change in
Germany.
Since the 2002 finals, they have only occassionally managed to find their best form, twice replacing foreign coaches hired to fill the void left by inspirational Dutch coach Guus Hiddink.
Hiddink’s successor, Humberto Coelho, stood down after barely a year in charge while his replacement, Jo Bonfrere, was axed despite leading the team to their sixth World Cup in a row.
Nine months before the finals, Dick Advocaat was installed in the coaching hotseat, the third Dutchman to take charge. Advocaat was also joined by two members of the back-room staff from 2002 — former Hiddink assistants Pim Verbeek and Afshin Ghotbi.
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