Korea Republic vs Czechia: World Cup Group A Match 1 Preview

It seems like it was just yesterday when we were previewing 2014, 2018, and 2022 here on the Tavern – I even just reread our 2018 World Cup Mexico preview just for fun – yet here we are. Another 4 years later, and another World Cup for us kicks off in less than a week. Just like with every other round, we go into the WC having gone through plenty of disappointment and controversy. But reminiscing aside, let’s talk about our opposition in the Czech Republic: the team that defied expectations and ended up qualifying over Denmark, the team most pundits thought would make it.

We discussed earlier how in this group, every team will fancy their chances of making it out of the group. There is no clear group leader and there is no clear group whipping boy; you could kind of make the case for Mexico and South Africa respectively, but the teams are similar enough to the point where anyone can beat anyone. Where analysts are split is whether Czechia or South Korea can take 2nd place. Funny enough, I believe that our weaknesses are their strengths, and vice versa. This could be a very difficult team to handle, but this could also be a team against which we can score plenty of goals. Just from comparing the two squads you’d think this one would be a relatively straightforward win; unfortunately, they have a veteran well respected coach who was just appointed 6 months ago and aptly utilized their strengths to secure their spot in the WC, while we’ve consistently underperformed and disappointed due to managerial shortcomings. Can we win this must-win game? Let’s find out:

Czechia team profile

Czechia’s strengths are very obvious. Watch any of their recent games and you’ll feel that 1) these guys are tall 2) these guys are strong 3) these guys are damn good at set pieces (FYI we will mostly analyze their UEFA playoffs because they had a managerial change in December 2025, so these two games + Kosovo/Guatemala are all we have under their new manager… and their new manager really improved this team). The stats you may have seen floating around include the following:

Average height: if you exclude a few shorter players (Vladimír Darida, Pavel Šulc, Vladimír Coufal were the only players <180 cm in the starting XI for their playoff games), every player is >190 cm tall. Their (usually) off the bench attackers in Tomáš Chorý and Adam Hložek are 199 cm (!) and 188 cm, respectively. In the second half in their game against Guatemala, the used two of the trio of Schick, Chorý, and Hložek at a time and crossed into the box. Remember back in the early 2010s when we used to just cross into the box hoping that Kim Shin Wook would just head the ball into the net or down into the feet of our players? Czechia has multiple Kim Shin Wooks. Fortunately, we have one of the top CBs in the world in Kim Min Jae as well as Lee Han Beom who is also 190 cm and regularly battles really tall Danish attackers… but Czechia know that after Kim Min Jae our aerial prowess falls quite a bit (although I believe LHB should also hold his own), and according to Korean media, multiple Czech outlets have been calling for Czechia to just cross where Kim Min Jae isn’t.

Set piece specialists: Unsurprising that a team this tall would score most of its goals from set pieces. Krejčí and Souček score off of corner kicks in the Premier League, while Patrick Schick scores headers in the Bundesliga all the time. I don’t know how they do it – their movements in set pieces just works. In their World Cup UEFA playoffs, this team beat Ireland and Denmark, both on penalties after 2-2 draws, and their four goals were as follows:

1. corner kick
2. penalty from a corner
3. corner kick
4. long throw in (counted as a set piece according to Whoscored)

Different manager but this was Czechia in UEFA World Cup Qualifiers: 4/6 goals set pieces, 0.5 goals from open play

But the funny thing is, for all their strength in set pieces, they also CONCEDE a lot of set pieces – in their last 10 games, they conceded 12 goals, 7 of which were set pieces.

Serious midfield strength: Tomáš Souček and Vladimír Darida are extremely physical dudes. Souček of West Ham (yes they got relegated but from what I can gather online he was one of their better players?) commits a ton of fouls and gets a lot of yellow cards. Darida is one of their shortest players but like other short dudes like Kante or Arturo Vidal, he covers a ton of ground and is super physical as well. They will probably make life extremely difficult for whoever starts in midfield – presumably Paik Seung Ho and Hwang In Beom. If HIB/PSH can successfully resist the press, we can create really good chances. If they lose possession deep – especially if it’s whichever midfielder is dropping between the defenders – Patrick Schick gets a free chance at goal.

I hate to say it but I don’t fancy our chances against these types of midfielders, and I think this (and set pieces) might be our biggest threats this game. If we get a ref that’s lenient on fouls, that would be very bad for us.

They defend deep: We are a fast team that likes to exploit space behind the defense. We’ve always player better against teams that play a high line. Czechia… does not do that. They sit deep and counter, defending in a 5-4-1. Sometimes, Pavel Šulc drops deep and makes a 6-3-1.

Exacerbating this is that Czechia only gets a day or two to adapt to the high altitude. They’re not going to be running at us or pressuring us super hard (like Mexico would), they will probably not raise the line; I am almost certain their plan will be to sit back and counter, and try to score off of set pieces.

Two counterattack patterns: The main characters in their attack seem to be Pavel Šulc and Patrick Schick with Provod, Coufal, and Souček supporting. In their games against Denmark and Northern Ireland, a common pattern is that upon winning the ball back, the first man to receive the ball is Šulc. He will drive the ball forward and while doing so, the defense (us) will naturally weight towards our right (their left). At the same time, the two right sided players Provod and Coufal run up. This way, either Provod Coufal or Schick can meet Šulc’s passes. What I saw most commonly was Schick receiving the ball and holding up play successfully to drop it towards the onrushing Provod or Coufal. In offense (even not in a counterattacking situation), these four – Šulc, Schick, Provod, and Coufal – seem to be the protagonists. And the dangerous thing is, Šulc can run up or cut inward himself, and he seems to naturally draw defenders towards him like Lee Kang In does. More on him later.

Now in their game against Guatemala we saw a slightly different counterattacking pattern: the counter usually started on the right side, with Patrick Schick moving right. This creates space for Šulc on the L flank, and then the counter starts. One common theme here was that often times Coufal (RWB) would find space high up and cross to two extremely tall dudes in the box: Schick and Souček (with Šulc, Jurásek, and Provod also in attack). There’s a bit of 뻥축구 to this team.

So from what I can loosely gather the target men here are Schick, Chorý, Hložek, Provod, Souček; the key passers are Šulc (most important midfielder), Coufal (set piece taker and crosser on the R flank), and Krejčí (initiates many attacks, also good at crosses).

Against us, where I expect Czechia to sit more defensively, I expect the former pattern (against Denmark and Ireland) than the latter more offensive pattern against Guatemala. How sad is it that this team counterattacks better than us even though their coach has only been at the helm for less than 6 months…

For fun: A team like this would actually have a better chance of beating Japan that beating us. I don’t know if any of our thousands of readers each day are Dutch, Swedish, or Tunisian, but if you are, know that Japan crumbles against physicality. In the most recent Asian Cup, they lost to Iran and Iraq and man the game plan was so simple. Long ball to a big tall striker (Hussein for Iraq, Azmoun for Iran) who outmuscles the defender –> goal or knock down for onrushing attacker –> goal. Oh and their goalkeeper makes lots of mistakes! Go Netherlands! Go Sweden! Go Tunisia!

Important players

Tomáš Souček – so much attention goes to Patrik Schick the #2 top scorer in the Bundesliga behind Minjae’s teammate Harry Kane, but this is the guy I’m the most worried about. Our CM line is thin and breaks easily under pressure. There is a high likelihood Souček repeatedly gets the better of Paik or even Hwang In Beom under pressure, both on the ground and even more certainly, in the air. I know having a guy like Kwon Hyeok Kyu isn’t the solution, but if we too had a world class physical CM/DM then that would make me much less worried about facing Czechia.

Pavel Šulc – the other guy I’m the most worried about. For the Korean audience, this guy is their Lee Kang In. The ace, the guy who provides most of the key passes and assists. So many of their attacks originate from his feet. He has 40 appearances for Lyon this season with 15 goals, 10 assists. Seol Young Woo will have his hands (feet?) full marking this guy. And what bothers me the MOST is that this guy operates in the exact space that we leave TONS of space in because Hong Myung Bo, just like Klinsmann before him, MADDENINGLY does not use a 3 back correctly… really worried about this player’s talents as well.

Patrik Schick – their star player, and rightfully so. 22 goals for Leverkusen this past season, 27 last season. He can head, he’s good on his feet, he’s fast. Cho Gue Sung and Oh Hyeon Gyu are no slouches themselves but if Schick was Korean you bet he’d be starting alongside Son Heung Min.

Ladislav Krejčí – Hwang Hee Chan’s CB teammate at Wolverhampton and the captain of Czechia. Very safe and very good in the air (scored against both Ireland and Denmark from set pieces), and you often see him send dangerous crosses and throughpasses into the box as well.

Adam Hložek – a promising young attacker at Hoffenheim (lots of Hoffenheim or ex-Hoffenheim players on this team… and the rest non-Bundesliga or PL guys are pretty much all from Slavia Prague, a team that you occasionally see in the UCL) who seems to play a super sub role on this team. He reportedly spent most of the season injured but recovered in time for the World Cup.

Some fun comments from their manager:

The usual lip service aside (Korea is a strong team, we can definitely make it to the round of 32, we play to win, etc), he also stated that Czechia has been analyzing Korea before they even qualified for the World Cup, and flat out said that they found a way to stop Son Heung Min. Of course they wouldn’t reveal it now, but apparently, they found one. I’m pretty sure that Hong Myung Bo’s tactics are the single best way to make Son less effective… but if they found one that other teams have not I’d be interested to see what it is. I don’t think any team that we’ve faced has specifically found a way to make Son ineffective… has there ever been a time where Son was tied up but the other guys were free to play their usual game? I don’t think so, and fortunately we actually have depth up front for what might be the first time in our history.

What I personally find very funny is that every team thinks they can make it to the round of 32, and that every team sees us as the key to progression. Mexico sees us as their biggest rival as we are the #2 squad on paper and nearly beat them in Nashville last year. South Africa sees us as the team they can stylistically perform the best against – we lost 4-0 to Ivory Coast recently, and since 2010 have not done well against Africa (Ghana in 2022, no African side in 2018, Algeria in 2014, Nigeria in 2010). Then Czechia sees us as the most important team to beat for the same reason we think THEY are the key team to beat – compared to us, they might have an easier time on paper against RSA and a harder time on paper against hosts Mexico.

Czechia’s weaknesses and how we should counter the above

Defensive weakness: Czechia’s defense is not THAT tight. They conceded two against Northern Ireland, two against Denmark, and one against Guatemala. It seems that once you get in behind their defensive line the cohesion can break down a bit. I don’t have a large enough sample size to make this claim, but it also seems that their RCB Chaloupek can sometimes make errors or get dragged out of position leaving space behind him? Our LW / LCF position luckily is always going to be one of our strongest (Lee Jae Sung, Son Heung Min, or Hwang), and there’s a chance we might be able to exploit this. Also, this might be a bit of comparative generalization but all three of their CBs are the solid, big, physical, relatively slower stopper types… not like Kim Min Jae kind who we can depend on to never lose a speed battle.

That seems to be their big weakness. There are some other weaknesses that come from being a star player heavy team, a team that doesn’t build up much and relies more on direct long balls (but we suffer against teams like this unfortunately… see the contrast between a direct up the field team like Ivory Coast and a intricate build up team like Austria), but they have an idea and they stick to it. Their players know what their roles are, unlike ours.

How do we counter their strengths? The obvious thing would be to NOT do what we did against Ivory Coast, Austria, and Brazil. I don’t know what’s up with HMB’s obsession with sending the fullbacks up so suicidally high up the pitch but that leaves so much space at the back that any team can exploit. We play against AFC teams that drop deep and counter all the time – the most painful of which came in the 2024 Asian Cup against Jordan, where they too had a left winger talisman in Al Tamari who we couldn’t handle and also crowded out our midfield, which became essentially nonexistent.

One more thing that I’ve been debating – where do we place Kim Min Jae? We’re not a man marking team so marking Patrick Schick out of the game seems unlikely. Do we keep him as sweeper? Or do we place him as LCB so he can 1) intercept the ball as he likes to do 2) meet crosses from Šulc towards the right side 3) cover wide swathes of space that only Kim Min Jae can do in group A? Czechia specifically wants to play to avoid Kim, but we can’t let that happen.

I’d wager that what we need to especially watch out for are the following:

Set pieces (obviously)
Winning back that “second ball” from Patrick Schick or the other ridiculously tall forwards
Not seeing our midfield outmuscled and virtually erased
Not letting them cross
Positional awareness when longballs come in, covering gaps in space
Not sending our wingbacks TOO far forward

If I were the coach: I would not go 3 ATB to begin with. I believe we should field our most in form and star players – if we’re doing this 3-2-5 anyway regardless of whether 2 CBs start or 3 CBs start, why limit our attacking options to three guys and inevitably bench someone like Oh Hyeon Gyu? But if we had to do with HMB wants to do, I would at least instruct Seol Young Woo to stay a bit back and mark Šulc. I would do HMB’s favored 3 ATB with Jens – KTH/LGH, KMJ, LHB – SYW, with HIB and PSH in the middle and LJS SHM LKI up top. But instead of sending SYW up so high at baseline, I’d tuck him in so Jens can push up and LGH/KTH naturally become LBs. KMJ and LHB are more than capable of contesting long balls, and LKI can operate well in space on his own.

What I DON’T want to see is this, leaving SO much free space for our opponents to exploit:

I want to see something closer to that hybrid 4 back that HMB has always done at Ulsan and since day 1 at the KNT. Remember that since day 1 with the KNT he would have Lee Tae Seok or Lee Myung Jae tuck inwards as a third CB and push SYW up high. But now we have Jens, who is by far the best attacking wingback we have. SYW is our best all around fullback though but he’s more defensive than offensive – he said so himself in an interview that he’s more comfortable defending than attacking. The worst thing we can do this game is to give Šulc that wide open pocket of space left behind by the fullbacks – it will inevitably draw Lee Han Beom out of position leaving Minjae to do too much on his own. It’s not like in this formation LKI won’t have any support – he can still get help from Seol and Hwang as needed – I just hate seeing our fullbacks placed so damn high and getting punished for it. Also this way, Lee Kang In can draw the defenders towards him (and our right side overall), and long ball towards Jens who thrives in space and can interchange with LJS and SHM. This is exactly how Monchengladbach utilizes him.

Two approaches in attack:

There are some calls in the Korea camp for Cho Gue Sung to start this match because we have no one better to withstand the physicality of Czechia. Lee Kang In probably can too but with his skillset not with his strength. CGS on the other hand duels and wins, both on the ground and in the air, against super tall and physical Danish defenders. He almost operates more like an attacking midfielder because he drops deep and helps out in midfield as well, which would be huge against guys like Souček.

Yet at the same time, Czech’s biggest weakness is probably their defending and finding space behind their defense is our best shot at finding goals. Fortunately, we have a guy who’s world class at this in Son Heung Min, as well as other guys who are very good at it like Lee Jae Sung, Hwang Hee Chan, and Oh Hyeon Hyu.

So which attackers start up top this game? As tempting as it is to use Cho Gue Sung to hold up the ball for Son/Hwang/Lee Jae Sung running in behind the defense, I have a feeling we’ll start Son up top mostly because Lee Kang In and Lee Jae Sung are so vital to this team that it makes little sense to bench them. It makes even less sense to bench Son. How Hong Myung Bo utilizes Son, LJS, LKI, Cho, and Hwang Hee Chan will be very interesting to see (and hopefully not an abject disappointment).

Side note: why are we so obsessed with 3 ATB?

Good question, and one that I do not really understand myself, but I will try to explain the massive controversy regarding to Hong Myung Bo’s obsession with playing 3 CBs. The TLDR is that it does not matter if we are playing 3ATB or 4ATB because HMB shifts between those anyway depending on how he places the DM and the fullbacks, but I’m not sure how sound his logic for switching to 3ATB is. In the end, his management is just a bit flawed, and even foreign outlets like the Athletic are covering how flawed HMB’s tactics are and how our issue is not our personnel, but our coaching.

First let’s start with why he does this. Korean managers have to contend with two different styles of play. First, we play a lot of games against AFC opponents. Every single AFC team except for Japan and Australia plays 11 men behind the ball and turtles hard against us. Most Middle Eastern teams just play like this period. On the other hand, in the World Cup, we are usually the underdogs. So it means taking a slightly more defensive approach. So in all his interviews, HMB talks about how we need to have not just a Plan A, but a plan B. And in the past, plan B used to be 뻥축구 but that doesn’t fly anymore in modern football, nor do we have the personnel for it. Now, HMB says we need different strategies and different formations to succeed against a wide variety of opponents. Up to this point, fair enough.

Where HMB’s argument breaks down is that our interpretation of a 3 ATB is HYPER OFFENSIVE. Like … if the idea is to add a CB to make our team more defensive, why are we playing like this with 5 men up top? Didn’t Jurgen Klinsmann do this and fail? This setup leaves our CBs so exposed and our flanks so exposed and our two midfielders having to cover huge areas of the pitch – and in this system literally only Kim Min Jae can do his job correctly.

I believe there are two types of managers (obviously there’s overlap but some skew one way more than the other): one that takes the personnel he’s got and finds a system that amplifies their strengths; and one that has a philosophy and molds the team in his philosophy. Hong Myung Bo skews heavily towards the latter. So when HMB says that there’s nothing different between his 3-back and his 4-back, he has a point. He has literally always played this way post-2014. Nothing has changed, and I’m not sure if he has learned much either. His ideal vision of a 3ATB is where the fullbacks push up and pin down the opposing fullbacks, and any attempts to attack from the opposition get intercepted by aggressively onrushing defenders – a very very attacking approach.

In 2014 we had a frustrating 4-2-3-1 and played U-ball. Since then, even during his Ulsan days (where he was coaching a top 2 K league team), he played either a 4-2-3-1 with a DM coming down into the CB line and the FBs pushing up real high. We started this way because back then HMB had Park Yong Woo and Won Du Jae, both of whom couldn’t cut it at the international level but HMB favored because they could implement his tactics. What happened since Park Yong Woo got injured? We started playing a 3 ATB. Which is still the same idea, just with an extra CB and without a designated defensive mid.

What works better for us, as evidenced by several recent games, is when the LWB pushes extra high, the LCB takes the spot of a traditional LB. Thus we build up with two CBs at the back with the LCB and RWB acting as regular fullbacks. See my more ideal formation above (the second one) for an illustration of this.

Overall thoughts

A difficult team for us stylistically. They are good at set pieces, we are not. Our midfield is thin, theirs is not. But with the quality in our team, Czechia is more than beatable. This is a must-win high stakes game. Win this one and we could 2nd or potentially even top the group. Lose this one and we will be weighed down for sure going into the other two games. My official Tavern prediction here would be a win for Korea without keeping a clean sheet e.g. 2-1 (our 2016 friendly against them we won 2-1), 3-1, or 3-2; less likely, a draw.