Song looks lively on the right side. Gets foulled and wins a free kick. Eulyong Lee takes and someone tried a bicycle kick but didn't go in.
Nice play in Bulgaria's box where Dohoon Kim bounces the ball off his chest over a defender straight to Ahn who gets past a defender to make space and shoots...
I wouldn't blame Choi Yong su. He came on with little more than thirty minutes left and nobody else could score. Ahn, Cha, Hoon, etc... The problems are far greater than one guy that a few of you don't like. The entire team is the problem rather than one scapegoat. Also the insistence on centering crosses that come in to well marked guys near the edge of the box is clearly not working. They are looking for a lucky break, and it hasn't worked against a decent team in a year. As in not even ONCE. Why do they keep playing at Seoul? It can't be because of crowds now since they had about 15,000 empty seats to the naked eye and would probably do better somewhere else for attendance. It's now been two days short of a year since they scored a goal at the ground. 2-3 loss to Brazil on November 20, preceded by a 1-0 loss to Germany and followed by a 1-0 loss to Japan, a 2-0 loss to Uruguay, a 1-0 loss to Argentina, and now a 1-0 loss to Bulgaria. Over 360 minutes without a goal there. I was calling it "the curse of Sangam" after the last game and it still hasn't lifted. There was also a 0-0 draw with Colombia in Busan, and a 1-0 win over Japan in Japan with Ahn scoring a decent goal. The ground has nothing to do with it but it's getting a bit boring and fans in the rest of the country deserve a chance to see these losers I expect that if Seoul had a K-League team half the red devils would have given up on the national team and thrown their lot in with the K-League team
ok.... the ref is crap. The 3 penalties not given is one thing... but the last play, when woonjae saved the freekick and the ball went out, the ref gave a goal kick. I really wonder if he actually knows the game at all, or if he's ever watched a fricken match before. AHHHH stresssssss!!!!!!
This really isn't classy, but I should have known better than to expect class from you. Back on the topic, I know Bulgaria are a team on good form, and the loss was a narrow one. But this Bulgarian team was not full strength and we had something to prove after our shameful defeats to Oman and Vietnam. The most worrying thing is that I'm not sure if Coelho has learned any lessons from the previous defeats. I used to think it was bad luck and lack of good finishing, but I'm beginning to think that there definately is something more to this. As RFE said, our attacking route is way too predictable. I'm starting to get really dissapointed with Coelho. He keeps changing formations but the end result seems to be the same; goal draught.
You at the game tonight njsar... I mean redfireengine? Missus pointed out a fair few signs/banners about Seoul City Hall's demise around the stadium. There were also 2 poor souls outside the ground wearing Bucheon shirts trying to drum up support for their fight against SK. Crowd, I'd reckon in the 30~40k region, not too bad but it'll be a long time before they get a sell-out crowd again I think. Wasn't impressed at all by Korea, they are seriously lacking in penetration in the final area. The Bulgarians didn't do anything special in the match and weren't made to work for their victory. soccermoney, the referee did wrongfully award a corner kick to the Bulgarians a few minutes before Lee Woon-Jae saved the free-kick, so it's possible the referee recognised his mistake and tried to even things up a bit. Coehlo's jacket is on a very shoogly peg (as we would say in Scotland )
How did Song Chong-gug play? Unlike other Feyenoord fans I haven't given up on him yet, and I was hoping that playing with the National Team would give him some confidence and get him back into good form.
Song did play and was awesome throughout the whole match. He broke through defenses pretty easily and looked very composed - leading the charge from the right side. I think he played best out of all the players on the pitch. The Ahn jh-Kim DH duo works alot more than anything involving Choi YS.
Lee Woon-Jae Lee Sang-Heon Yoo Sang-Cheol Park Jae-Hong Song Chong-Guk Kim Nam-Il (Lee Chun-Soo 58) Lee Eul-Yeong Park Ji-Sung Lee Young-Pyo Kim Do-Hoon (Choi Yong-Soo 55) Ahn Jung-Hwan (Cha Doo-Ri 75) Bulgarians made about 5 or 6 changes during the game.
I told you. If you use Choi Yong-soo at any point in the match, you will lose becase any time he's on the pitch, it's like being down to 10 men. So you can say in the last 30 minutes (or whenever he came on) we played with 10. Yes, it is a teamwide problem, but he's the worst.
Yeah, but he wasn't playing in any of the other disasters though. Who would you have playing up front? None of the other guys are scoring any goals and Choi Yong-soo was just thrown in there with no chemostry with the other players. Maybe he isn't the man for the job but the loss had very little to do with him. Their mode of attack is one dimensional and the defence has very little work to do and yet can't even manage to do that properly.
I thought Kim Do Hoon was so much better than Choi Yong Soo in the match. He got banged up when he and the defender collided heads. His header was awesome but the goalie made a magnificent save. Right after that play, Choi Yong Soo was substituted and yea... he should not play for the NT.
alright, here goes... i'm sure everyone will hate me for saying this but... am i the only person who actually feels bad for Choi Yong Soo? Don't get me wrong, I don't especially like him. But, I conversely don't despise him. Sure, he is not scoring goals, but neither are any other Korean strikers. Also, Choi is not as strong as Kim or flashy as Ahn. Choi is just a normal player who scores goals. He is not a playmaker, he is a striker. He needs people to look for him, set him up, and let him finish. It's not like he has so many golden opportunities to score. Ideally, a striker should score one time in every four attempts. Choi is not doing this, but Ahn scores once in 10 attempts and no one blames him. All the Korean strikers now are terrible, basically, there are NONE. Ahn is the model right now, but honestly, he is not a very good striker, the percentage of goals to shots is pitiful. And all the young talent that Korea has Jo Jae Jin and Jung Jo Gook are not ready yet. So, Korea has no good strikers. Coelho is in a tough position. He's not doing a good job either considering they don't seem to be improving. Nevertheless, Korea is still a very very good soccer team. Looking at the chemistry on the pitch and team speed, Korea is very strong. However, their strikers need lots of work. Korea needs a natural striker who is basically born to score goals and who kicks himself in the head when he doesn't score once every two matches. Plus, defense is sketchy, but give them time, trust me they will be fine. It's still 2003, there is time.
I agree sangatang. Korea needs to stop looking for scapegoats and look at the bigger picture. There was general dominance of the game yesterday, just a defensive lapse and a problem with finishing and attacking options. anyway here is an article from the Korea Times about it... http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/sports/200311/kt2003111917201911620.htm A Step in the Right Direction By Eoghan Sweeney Sports Editor National team head coach Humberto Coelho will have been encouraged by the performance, if not the result, against Bulgaria on Tuesday evening. It may be a blessing, however, that the Portuguese coach speaks little Korean, given the media reaction that was as predictable as it was wide of the mark. Those who know their football know better than to take the flashy, trashy ``sports" papers too seriously, but the vast mass of recreational fans are likely to be swayed by the banner headlines, putting more pressure on Coelho despite the team's best performance in months. Of course there was plenty that can be improved upon, but the Korean team played with an aggression, self-belief and at times creativity that have been sorely lacking. It is easy to slate the defense for the soft goal that gave Bulgaria the win, or the inability to score despite dominating for most of the game, these faults need to be placed in their proper context. Following the recent losses to Vietnam and Oman, it would have been easy for heads to drop. The Korean team's reaction was instead to get stuck in order to try and wrench back the respectability that has been bleeding away since the World Cup. Bulgarian football is currently brimming with confidence following comfortable qualification for the European Championships from a tough group that included Croatia and Belgium. Plamen Markov's team clearly came to Seoul looking for a result to keep morale high and did a thoroughly professional, if not very entertaining, job. The sight of nine or 10 men kept behind the ball for almost the entire second half may have been frustrating for the home fans, but served to emphasize to Coelho's side the damage that can be done by a single lapse in concentration at this level. While Bulgaria were not at full strength, the hosts were if anything even less well prepared. The presence of Korea's European-based players was offset by the unavailability of several key players that meant Coelho had no first-choice defender. The backline, playing as a unit for the first time, was caught square on a number of occasions, but more damaging was that the use of Yoo Sang-chul as center-half left the midfield without a dominant presence. Park Ji-sung was Korea's outstanding player on the night, and but for two fine saves could have been the matchwinner. Ahn Jung-hwan meanwhile swayed between threatening and wasteful, and will presumably have to watch the videos several times over to figure out how he missed the chance to equalize late in the game. Coelho will take some solace from having watched his team create at least five clear scoring chances against a team of this caliber, particularly since his players had almost no preparation time for this friendly. Over the coming months, Korean football needs cool heads rather than dramatic gestures. Korean Football Association officials trying to wield power over the head coach through ill-advised comments to favored media are doing little to help the team. The stated intention of increasing the number of internationals played is laudable. The reasoning behind this, however, that it will help raise Korea in the FIFA rankings, is shortsighted. Friendly matches should be used as part of the ongoing process of finding a lineup and tactics that work. Results should not be paramount, something that should have been learnt by both the media and the KFA during Hiddink's tenure, when failure in the Concacaf Gold Cup had both institutions in a froth. With the East Asian Football Federation Cup up next, Coelho will be well aware that his latitude for experimentation is perilously narrow. He has yet to show any sign that he is building a world-beating team, but any major decision on his future should be given more time. No good can come of Korean football getting into a constant pattern of hiring and firing based on a handful of results. eos2002@football.com 11-19-2003 17:21
Eoghan's article wrapped it up nicely. Couldn't describe the game any better. But one thing I disagree with him is that we really lacked creativity as usual. Of course finishing will get better if the team gets more prep. time but each player's individual brilliance in a blink second is sorely needed in game like this. This is what sets World-class teams apart from mediocre teams. Teams like Brazil and France can go out on any given day without any preparation and still score goals by instant cleverness of each player. We need to find a way to improve on this.
Lee Chun Soo did play in the match, i think he came on for Kim Nam Il? He wasnt too much of a factor though.