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Coach pledges to improve defense

June 10, 2014

Hong Myung-bo postgame interview

South Korea’s defensive woes were magnified in Monday’s 4-0 loss to Ghana. (Yonhap)

By Kim Tae-jong

Korea head coach Hong Myung-bo said Tuesday that the two early goals his men allowed to Ghana were “too huge to recover from” and finally led the team to a crushing 0-4 defeat.

“I don’t think it was systematical errors but rather mistakes of a few individual players that led us to give up the first two goals, which later led us to a rout,” Hong said after the warm-up match against Ghana at Sun Life Stadium in Miami.

“I think players were under huge pressure as it was our last test. They were all tense and could not give a 100 percent performance,” he said.

It was the final game for the Taeguk Warriors before they move to Brazil for the World Cup. Korea, which belongs to Group H, will play its first match against Russia on June 18 before taking on Algeria and Belgium.

It seems that the defense is still the biggest concern, as it showed few sign of improvement compared to previous friendly matches.

But the talented African team took good advantage of the weakness. Marseille striker Jordan Ayew scored a hat-trick with goals in the 13th, 53rd and 89th minutes, while striker Asamoah Gyan scored a goal in the 44th minute.

After the game, Ghana head coach James Kwesi Appiah also advised Korea to be more “careful in defense.”

“The match result is not important,” Appiah said. “We scored, by taking chances successfully. But Korea did a good job and is a good team. They are good at attacking but if they meet a team with fast players, they should be more careful in defense.”

Hong is also well aware of this.

He also stressed that the team will quickly improve its weak defense and fix other problems they exhibited in the match.

“Only about a week is left before we have our first game against Russia, but we can fix the problems in a short period of time and that’s football. Although we were defeated, I hope it will have a positive impact on the players.”

The following is an excerpt of Hong’s answers during a news conference after the game.

Q: Park Chu-young (Arsenal) failed to give an impressive performance, but you didn’t substitute Kim Shin-wook (Ulsan) for him. Why?

A: There will be enough chances for us to use Kim during the World Cup. As we are already well aware of his strengths, we didn’t need to reveal them to our opponents.

Q: You mentioned that you would focus on defense against counterattacks. What do you think about that now?

A: I don’t think we allowed Ghana many chances for fast counterattacks. We gave up the second goal during a counterattack, as players failed to play to the whistle.

Q: What were the lessons from this game?

A: I had stressed the importance of physical battles in the World Cup before the game against Ghana, because my men had tended to play too nicely in the previous games. We had a couple of chance to score in the beginning but mistakes led us to give up goals and it discouraged players. We can always learn something from a game, regardless of whether we win or lose. I hope the defeat will have a positive impact on the players

Q: Players seemed to be all tense especially after giving up the first goals.

A: It’s true that they had to play under huge pressure. They failed to show impressive play (in the previous games) and that was the reason, I think.

Q: What is your plan for the remaining time before the tournament?

A: We will take a good advantage of the week left. We can make changes over the long period but we can also make quick changes if we think there are problems.