Will the Korean national soccer team, which is aiming to become the top team in Asia for the first time in 64 years, make a decent first step against Bahrain?The national soccer team led by coach Jurgen Klinsmann will play the first match of Group E of the 2023 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup against Bahrain at Jassim bin Hamad Stadium in Doha, Qatar, at 8:30 p.m. (Korean time) on the 15th.This is a game in which Korea, which won the first and second Asian Cups in 1956 and 1960 but has not reached the top since, takes its first step toward winning its third trophy.After winning twice, Korea only finished as runner-up four times (1972, 1980, 1988, 2015), and expectations are higher than ever ahead of this tournament.Key players such as Son Heung-min (Tottenham), Lee Kang-in (Paris Saint-Germain), Kim Min-jae (Bayern Munich), and Hwang Hee-chan (Wolverhampton) are being evaluated as having the potential to return to the top of Asia while performing well in the European ‘big league’.This game against Bahrain is a game that should be used as an opportunity to showcase the skills of the ‘all-time member’ for the first time in the finals and create an atmosphere to pass the group stage with ease. Korea has been on a winning streak in the first round of the group stage for three consecutive Asian Cup competitions.
In the first match of the 2011 tournament, they met their current opponent, Bahrain, and won 2-1, and in the 2015 tournament, they defeated Oman 1-0.In the first game of the 2019 tournament, they defeated the Philippines 1-0.Looking at the ‘weight difference’ between the two teams in this Bahrain match, Korea is expected to win easily.Just looking at the FIFA rankings, there is a wide gap between Korea and Bahrain in 23rd and Bahrain in 86th.Bahrain has never been to the World Cup finals, and its best result in the Asian Cup was 4th place (2004).Led by Son Heung-min, who is already ranked among the best players in Asia’s history, Korea’s national team has 12 European players, and in the Bahrain national team, where most of the players play in their own league, striker Abdullah Yusuf Helal of Mlada Boleslav in the Czech Republic is the only European player. dig.For Klinsmann, an undisputed victory should be meaningful in arranging the players’ stamina, using a variety of players, and preparing for the upcoming game. With injuries to Hwang Hee-chan, a member of the offensive line, and veteran fullback Kim Jin-soo (Jeonbuk) occurring even before the start of the tournament, managing the players’ condition is more important than anything else in order to achieve the goal in the long journey that will last for up to a month.
The national team has been training in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) since the beginning of this month, and completed its actual review by winning 1-0 in the final evaluation match against Iraq on the 6th, and completed preparations by hardening in Qatar from the 10th.In past international matches between the two countries, Korea has an absolute advantage with 11 wins, 4 draws, and 1 loss.Korea’s only loss came in the 2007 Asian Cup finals, where it lost 1-2 to Bahrain in the group stage. Since then, they have been ahead with 2 wins and 1 draw in 3 meetings, but I remember Korea struggling even though they won 2-1 in the round of 16 of the 2019 Asian Cup, the previous match.At the time, the team took the lead thanks to Hwang Hee-chan’s first goal, but gave up the tying goal in the 32nd minute of the second half and were sent into overtime. Thanks to Kim Jin-soo’s winning goal in extra time in the first half of the overtime, they won 2-1.Afterwards, Korea was eliminated by Qatar in the quarterfinals.Currently, the Bahrain national team is led by coach Juan Antonio Fish, who played for the Spanish national team during his days as a player and also played for Spain’s FC Barcelona.As a coach, Coach Fish led the Chile national team from 2016 to 2017, the Saudi Arabian national team from 2017 to 2019, and has been in charge of Bahrain since last year.Bahrain lost 0-2 to 온라인카지노 Australia and 0-3 to Angola in the Asian Cup ‘mock test’ held this month.