SEOUL – Korea Republic coach Jo Bonfrere plans to utilize a more attacking approach as he prepares his side for their appearance at next year’s World Cup finals in Germany. Speaking to Dong-A Ilbo on Thursday, the Dutchman revealed some of his preparation plans for the Korean national team, whose 4-0 trouncing of Kuwait on June 8 secured their sixth consecutive appearance in the World Cup, an Asian record. While Bonfrere will have his work cut out to emulate the achievement of Guus Hiddink, who helped Korea to become the first Asian side to reach the World Cup semi-finals in 2002, he does not plan to deploy the counter-attacking tactics that proved so successful for his compatriot three years ago. “I will organize a Korean team different from that of the 2002 World Cup,” said Bonfrere, who was in Frankfurt for the FIFA Confederations Cup final between Brazil and Argentina. “In 2002, the team’s tactics were based upon counterattacking while playing defensively. However, such tactics do not work any longer. Our play must be more offensive,” added the 59-year-old. The Dutchman felt that one of the main areas requiring improvement is the stamina of his squad. “Players in the European big leagues train twice almost everyday in the morning and the afternoon, even on days without a match. By contrast, Korean players tend to tire easily by undergoing such training. “If we are to succeed in the World Cup event next year, strong teamwork based on strong stamina is essential.” One of the players that Bonfrere will be looking to at next year’s tournament in Germany is exciting midfielder Park Ji-sung, who recently completed a high-profile move to English Premiership side Manchester United. The Korea coach expects the former PSV Eindhoven player to be a big hit at Old Trafford. “The English Premier League is much more fast-paced and fierce compared to Park’s former league in the Netherlands. As the name suggests, it is a place where ‘premier’ players are gathered, and his chances in the league will depend on how fast his position as starter is established. “Park’s insight of the game, stamina, and creativity will bring him definite success in the Premier League,” he said of the 24-year-old. Another Korean youngster, current AFC Young Player of the Year Park Chu-young, is also rumoured to be attracting interest from German Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich, a move that Bonfrere feels would be greatly beneficial to the 20-year-old striker. “With the World Cup event in Germany coming up soon, it is very good news that Bayern Munich, one of Germany’s top football clubs, expressed interest in Park Chu-young. “I hope Park will be able to gain more stamina to fight through fierce opposition by playing in the German Bundesliga,” he added.
what a fa/ggot i hate that bastard. our weakness is defense right now and he's gonna put more emphasis on attack. even if we succeed in germany, i will want him sacked. he's freaking stupid becuase the key to our success is the players not the a-hole of a coach
well, playing offensive minded football doesn't always mean that he'll do nothing about defense. he's just talking about type of football he would like to see our team play next year in Germany. I for one would like to see our team playing offensive minded football. but this article is not even worth reading. our team was playing defensively while counter-attacking? wtf? name one game we played defensively during the 2002 World Cup. how can you possibly out-shoot and out-posess teams like Portugal, Italy, and etc if we were playing counter-attacks? our mentality was always ATTACK, ATTACK, and ATTACK. that kind of mentality always fits our team perfect because we have shietloads of talented forwards and attacking midfielders.
well...if can keep possession of the ball, that means the other team won't have it. and as a result, they can't score. he's putting emphasis on our strength, instead of focusing on our weakness. that's what i'd do with this team. run damnit! run!! just pretend we're the phoenix suns and just simply try to outscore everyone! haha.
Yeah, I had the same reaction. Korea did not counterattack much in WC2002. I wouldn't call 3-4-3 a defensive formation.
actually, none of the goals Korea scored during the 02 WC started from a counter-attack. our team traditionally sucks at counter-attacking. ironically, our defense also sucks at defending against counter-attacks. we went all out attacking during the 02 WC. like I said, our game was ATTACK, ATTACK, and ATTACK.
yea hiddink style was attacking football....only game i remember we played a little defensively is the 1st half of the spain game....i wonder if boner actually watched our games from 02 wc??
Thing about Hiddink's 3-4-3 was that it was very versatile. It could be used as a very attacking formation, but at the same time, it could turn into a very defensive one. Here's an example of our formation for the Portugal game in the WC: -------------Ahn JH---------------- ----Seol-----------------Park------- --------Yoo------Kim NI------------ Lee YP----------------------Song CG -----Kim TY----Hong-----Choi JC---- -----------Lee WJ------------------ This is how we started off in the Portugal game. Guus reliazed that Portugal was a very dangerous attacking team, and that Draw would have been enough to advance, so both Lee YP and Song CG concentrated sorely on defensive duties in the first half. This was how they were able to mark Figo and Conceicao on the flanks so well. As a matter of fact, they concentrated so purely on defense that this was more of a 5-4-1 than a 3-4-3 at times(Seol and Park would stay back as well to cover for Lee YP and Song, effectively clogging the midfield). It was only after Beto received his second yellow that Lee and Song both started moving up the field much more (in fact, Park scored only couple minutes after Beto was sent off I think). So, while 3-4-3 is mainly an attacking formation, it can also easily convert to a really defensive one. Greece also used a similar tactic in their Euro 2004 win... they mostly used a 3-3-4 formation as a DEFENSIVE one (their wingers usually stayed back to make it more like a 4-5-1 in most of the games)
yeah, but although Lee Young-pyo and Song Chong-guk started out defensively against Portugal, our team was still playing attacking minded football from the beginning. we dominated that game from beginning til the end. even before the red cards were given. also, Greece used the tactic that 'looked' similar to ours but both our team and Greece played different type of football. Greece concentrated purely on defense then counter-attacked, but our offense was just all out attack. no counter-attacking. we barried the other teams in their half of the field and attacked like no tommorow.
Crap journalism it may be, but maybe read the article alittle closer? The journalist actually quotes Bonfrere about the counter-attacking tactics of Korea in 02. Maybe a bigger issue here is whether Bonfrere can understand a team's tactics/schemes when watching a game. Pretty safe to assume he's watched the Korean WC02 matches at least once, eh? I am no soccer expert, but if it is so obvious to everyone else here in the board, I would sure hope that this was real crappy journalism (by misquoting the coach) or we may have some major problems.
I recommend 2-1-7 formation, made famous by someone in BS KNT. Park CY, Park JS, Lee DG, Seol, Cha, Ahn, Chung ................. ...............Lee Young Pyo .............. Song Chong Guk and a Kim (any Kim will do) Seriously, I think KNT needs solid 3 defesive formation with 1 good sub. If I were Mr. Beehive, I would stick with grooming the 4 defenders first.
lol, it'd been nice if there were some football related emoticons. Rkim surely would have a field day
When bonfrere first came to Korea, he pledged that he would make a team that would play dynamic, attractive, and attacking football. I personally believe that Bonfrere still has not yet showed us his true capabilities and potential. The main difference between when Hiddink coached us is that he had more time to test out players, and strategies because we were not involved in the preliminaries for the '02 world cup. That gave him more time to experiment the different options available. He also had more training time together as a whole regarding to team-oriented spirit. Now for Bonfrere, he was just playing it safe as he knew that we had to at least qualify and to do so, he wasn't too adventurous because it was simply too risky to play an unnecesarily exagerrated plan. Now is the real time for Bonfrere to take things on his side and start contemplating seriously about what his plans are because there's simply more room for innovation and expertise that come along with time. So let us wait and see how he pulls off Korea Repulic's team. By now he knows a lot about korean football players and their strengths and weaknesses so he will indeed show a different Korean side. I believe that DaeHanMinGuk will be able to show germany and the world that Korea is a threat. Amen Chu Young Park and Yi Sung Pareee