Seoul: Former World Cup star Cho Gue-sung has received his first men's national team call-up in 20 months. Cho, a forward for the Danish club FC Midtjylland, was one of 27 players named to the South Korean squad by head coach Hong Myung-bo on Monday, ahead of friendly matches against Bolivia on Nov. 14 in the central city of Daejeon and Ghana on Nov. 18 in Seoul.
According to Yonhap News Agency, Cho last played for South Korea during the second round of the Asian World Cup qualification in March 2024. He has scored nine times in 39 international appearances, with two of those goals coming against Ghana in South Korea's 3-2 loss during their group stage match at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. The brace made Cho the first South Korean to score multiple goals in a single World Cup match.
Cho's performance in Qatar opened up opportunities for him to take his talent overseas, leading to his signing with FC Midtjylland in 2023. However, he missed over a year after undergoing knee surgery and then suffering complications from the procedure. He returned to action in August and has scored four goals in 12 matches in all competitions so far this season.
According to the Korea Football Association (KFA), Hong recently traveled to Denmark to see Cho in person. "Before my trip, my coaches had also checked on his condition on a few occasions," Hong said in a KFA press release. "We decided he should be good to go with the national team."
The squad includes many of the usual suspects, including Son Heung-min of Los Angeles Football Club, Kim Min-jae of Bayern Munich, Lee Kang-in of Paris Saint-Germain, Hwang In-beom of Feyenoord, and Lee Jae-sung of Mainz 05. German-born half-Korean midfielder Jens Castrop is also back after playing in three of South Korea's past four matches.
Yang Min-hyeok, a 19-year-old forward on loan from Tottenham Hotspur to the second-tier club Portsmouth FC, made the national team for the first time in eight months. Kwon Hyeok-kyu of FC Nantes will look to collect his first cap. He was called up for World Cup qualifiers in October last year but did not see any action then.
The KFA said the national team will train at the brand-new National Football Center in Cheonan, some 90 kilometers south of Seoul. The two matches this month will be the final ones of the year for South Korea. So far in 2025, the Taegeuk Warriors have recorded six wins, three draws, and two losses.