Really worried about our wing backs and the probability that JWY starts in midfield. The guy is useful at times in defending against a structured offensive but is an absolute liability for any counters (rash tackles) and in any offensive capacity other than distributing out the the wings.
As a neutral observer I have a very bad feeling about South Korea in this World Cup. I'll say it's more likely that South Korea will for the first time since 1990 return from the World Cup losing all three games than they'll advance to the Round of 16. I have an excellent feeling about Japan albeit they have a much tougher group.
I don't/can't blame you for feeling the way you do, any knt fan who's been carefully observing the team's performance thus far would also agree that our hopes of making it past the group stages are very bleak, but then again a lot of us have been feeling this way post 2010 considering the dark ages we've been in under the likes of Cho Kwang-rae, Choi Kang-hee, Hong Myung-bo, but particularly Stielike considering he's let 3 years gone down the drain (Shin Tae-yong only up until the point he pulled a Kazan miracle, so he gets a pass). As I've said before, all I'm hoping for is another repeat of Kazan Miracle, at least it's better to go out with a bang than to fade away without a single win like the 2014 WC edition. Who knows though? anything can happen at the WC, so there's that.
I rated South Korea as 28th side going into this World Cup. I'm pretty down on them because of trash defense, trash goalkeeper and an out of form Son. See post 1892 of the following thread how I rated all the 32 teams. https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/m...at-do-you-think.2120305/page-76#post-40846870
Being even more pessimistic than the despondent fans/naysayers, I say that we'll have six losses with zero goals and at least 20 let in.
Pretty accurate but I believe that Son will come good in the WC. I bet his bad form is related to the pressure on him to succeed and accomplish something with the national team. Plus Son is always kinda shit for NT but as long as he scores some wondergoals we have a chance. So I'm not worried about his form
Initially I was pretty high on South Korea when I saw them in qualfying. Bento's high press works well against Asian sides. However against better sides we saw how vulnerable South Korea have became with that. Another thing is that I don't think staying all the time in their shell in South Korea was a good idea. They should have set up a camp somewhere in Europe or even in the Middle East and played there. As you see from my ratings you guys played in the last international break sides I rate even worse. So that was hardly aproppriate preparation for the World Cup. I don't rate Paraguay and Chile either. And Egypt with low skill level and slow play was a very favourable match up for you guys. It was only really Brazil that was very good preparation for the World Cup. And in that game we saw many many holes at the back.
Yeah, I was happy to see our pressing game work up until the point it didn't work, but the infuriating part is why that all disappeared when we've faced Japan twice, like we literally let them dictate the game as if they were just practicing. Ironically we've had a much better performance this time around than we've had during the previous two WCQs 2014, 2018 (Aside from the first two matches vs Iraq and Syria followed by the last match vs UAE). Also, this was the second time since the 94 WCQs where we've beaten Iran, and third time where we've not lost to them throughout the qualifiers (94, 10, 22). As for our preparations for the WC, a lot has to do with the restrictions due to the pandemic, but at the same time due to the incompetency of our FA. We could've had our final friendly abroad with everyone included, but instead we play at home where we'll be fielding only our domestic players since our foreign based players will be unavailable due to league schedule. I also agree that Brazil was our only good friendly, got humbled pretty bad, but then again it's Brazil we're talking about so I won't complain. But do also note that we've struggled and had many problems (Particularly our defense) when facing Paraguay and Chile, teams who you don't rate. Then we got pounced by a rotational young Japan team at the eaff e-1 football championship. Do note though, that a lot of our players are out of form and or injured.
Bad news for Portugal. Diogo Jota joins a fellow attacker Pedro Neto in missing out on the WC due to an injury. Really sucks for them and for Portugal. But it improves (slightly) our chance of making it out of the group.
Even though I admitted that I don't have a very good feeling about South Korea they remain favourites to win at least against Ghana. Ghana has a weird squad. Almost half of the squad is on single digit number of caps. They clearly haven't prepared this World Cup for four years unlike South Korea. It's much more like they go into this "oh let's put somehow together a squad that doesn't get humilated and competes". There has been no project. New players are rushed in a couple of months before the World Cup. When people here the name "Ghana" they tend to be feared but this particular Ghana squad won't stand a chance in Qatar. For me if everything goes according to script (which almost never does in football to be honest) this group should finish like this: 1. Portugal_______9 2. Uruguay_______4 3. South Korea___3 4. Ghana_________1 I see Portugal a cut above anyone else in this group. Uruguay might struggle as they are also in a weird spot currently between two generations. South Korea's performance seems pretty predictable to me. They'll beat a Ghana team that struggle for cohesion but lose all the rest as they haven't shown to be solid defensively. Ghana lack chemistry with all the new players but their squad is definately too good to lose all three. Also expect them to be up for the Uruguay game because of what happened in 2010.
here's market value of teams in our group: portugal: 882m euros uruguay: 395.40m euros ghana: 206.40m euros south korea: 159.55m euros
some of younguys are super optimistic lol better than being the opposite for sure ghana has routinely schooled us on pure athletics alone .....fantastic runners them if we beat them ill be optimistic
Just the ability to run fast will get you nowhere if it's not well-coordinated. Ghana are just a mess. More so than Korea. Their manager is not even remotely qualified to work as a manager of a World Cup side. He's much more an assistant and some sort of youth coach. They hired also Cris Houghton as technical adviser in order to not fully be outmatched by managers of the teams in Group H. Again too many players with little or almost non-existant experience in the national team. If Bento loses to this Ghana the KFA better sack him right after final whistle.
Agreed. If we can't pull out 3 points against a team whose dress room atmosphere should be the worst in our group, we don't deserve to get into the knock-out phase.
lol dont understand why we are underestimating Ghana. Remember Algeria? We are not in a position to underestimate any teams in the WC.
we should all know Bentos days are numbered lets be honest and real if you were to compare the team from just prior to his hiring to now youd see very kittle if any improvement....his tenure has been as pointles as Nikes uniform unveilings if ghana bends us over itll be even more embarrassing based on what youve written. Im a stats guy and they have owned us in head to heads im sure theyre still heavily favored going into this one.