IPOH – South Korea danced in the rain but were poor with their finishes despite defeating Canada 1-0 in their third match at the ongoing Sultan Azlan Shah Cup today.
The match was delayed for approximately 15-20 minutes at the end of the first quarter due to a heavy downpour at the Azlan Shah Stadium.
Oh Se Yong, who made his third appearance for his country, scored the only goal of the game in the 13th minute in a lacklustre match that attracted less than 100 people to the stadium.
South Korea’s head coach, Min Tae-seok, admitted to his team’s attacking flaws and said that his side has to improve their finishing if they hope to clinch the gold at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.
“Our one-on-one finishing is something that we really need to improve, and we can’t keep using the weather as an excuse whenever we don’t perform well.
“For this year’s tournament, I do understand that we have a young team here in Ipoh, but the boys have to buck up, and we really need to improve our attacking.
“Every other aspect of our team is already good enough, but once we improve our attacking, we can be a really formidable side in the years to come.
“I have already spoken to the coaches about this matter, and we will be training ten times harder than before so that we can prevail at the Asian Games,” said Tae-seok during a post-match conference.
Previously, Scoop reported that South Korea will be using the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup as a platform to prepare themselves for glory at the Asian Games.
The Taegeuks, who have won the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup on three occasions (1996, 2010, and 2019), entered the invitational tournament with zero expectations as they aim to give exposure to their squad, with an average age of 26.
Meanwhile, Canada’s Patrick Tshutshani believes that his team should have taken advantage of their counters against their world number 12 opponents, citing that the Koreans were not at their maximum in today’s match.
“We had so many chances to score in this game, and we should have capitalised on the game through our counter-attacks.
“This is something really disappointing, and we need to rectify this if we hope to improve in the years to come.
“But defensively, we played well, and I’m happy that the boys only conceded one goal in today’s match,” said Tshutshani.
Canada will take on Pakistan in their fourth match tomorrow, while South Korea will face New Zealand on the same day. – May 7, 2024