DOHA– South Korea may not be seen as a force to be reckoned with at this year’s FIFA World Cup in Qatar, but one thing in the team’s favor is continuity, midfielder Hwang Hee-chan said Thursday.

Head coach Paulo Bento has been in charge of the Taegeuk Warriors since the fall of 2018. He is the longest-serving bench boss in South Korean national football team history. Compare that with the previous two World Cups, when South Korea scrambled to make coaching changes barely a year before the big tournament.
“I think having played under the same coach for four years and having been with mostly the same group of players is a strength for this team,” Hwang said after a training session Thursday at Al Egla Training Facility in Doha. “We’ve won together, and we’ve lost together. Along the way, we became tighter as a team, and we played really well during the final qualification round. I think this tournament is our opportunity to show what we’ve been working on for four years.”

Hwang, who plays for Wolverhampton Wanderers, is gearing up for his second World Cup appearance. The 26-year-old said he no longer has to fight nerves the way he did in Russia in 2018.

“I think I’ve grown so much as a player over the past four years,” Hwang said. “I am trying to figure out how I can help first-timers.”

South Korea will be in for a tough fight just to get out of Group H against Uruguay, Ghana and Portugal, with most pundits picking Portugal and Uruguay to advance to the knockouts. But Hwang said South Korea’s collective confidence is quite high.

“Those other teams have some good players, but we also have a lot of talented guys. We all have confidence in ourselves,” Hwang said. “If we can all play to our capabilities, we should be able to produce some creative plays on offense.”

Asked who he thought would score South Korea’s first goal in Qatar, Hwang said: “Obviously, I’d love to score a lot of goals here. But I just hope we as a team don’t concede goals.”

Source: Yonhap News Agency