The 6 Game Stretch: Korea 1-0 Thailand (update)

A Record Won in Unconvincing Fashion

Suk Hyunjun scored the only goal as the Korean national team beat Thailand 1-0 in Bangkok to extend their most-clean-sheet-wins streak to 9 games – a national team record. It was far from a convincing performance, however, with a strange formation and poor performances from players who were out-of-form or easily replaceable.

Starting lineup
There was some pre-match controversy around the lineup – the KFA gave us this graphic, which seemed to suggest a 4-4-2 diamond.


But in reality, it seemed to be this weird, random, dysfunctional, unclear 4-3-1-2.

KNT v Thailand - Football tactics and formations

*Jae jumping in* The formation was a bit odd particularly in that both the KFA, KBS, and articles seemed to describe it as a 4-4-1-1 with Ki Sung-yueng playing as a second striker and Lee Jeong-hyeob as a right winger when that clearly wasn’t the case. If I tried to expand on Tim’s description as a “weird, random, dysfunctional, unclear 4-3-1-2” I would say it shifted between a heavily shifted 4-3-1-2 and a 3-5-2 with Koh Myung-jin and Jung Woo-young (and occasionally Ki Sung-yueng) dropping alongside the centerbacks. On the face it seems odd, but lopsided/asymmetrical formations can be used in that they create overloads to overwhelm opposing defenses on one side to open the other or break through.

The problem was that Kim Chang-soo was not sufficient on the right to dominate that flank on his own, plus Lee Jeong-hyeob/Ki Sung-yueng/Jung Woo-young did not make enough moves into the open space when there was an overload on the left. If Korea/Stielike wanted to play a similar formation I would suggest this XI as a better fit.

Screen Shot 2016-03-29 at 11.03.16 PMThe goal came through Suk Hyunjun – highlights below:

In all honesty I haven’t gotten around to watching the entire match properly yet (I’ve seen bits and pieces + highlights) so I’ll let Jinseok Yang or any other Tavern writer come in here and add to this post.

Positives
Suk Hyunjun: Man, Suk is beastly. He scored the first goal in the 3rd minute with this cannon from distance, recognizing that a through pass would be wrong

Ko Myongjin: He assisted the first goal, and according to Korean media, was dynamite – a smart, intuitive playmaker, doing his shift deep and higher up. From the 30 minutes I saw of him (obviously no sample size worth much), he’s worth another call-up. Especially since Ki will miss the Spain and Czech Republic friendlies in June due to his military training (don’t worry, he’s got exception, he just has to do the boot camp.)

*Jae* Kim Seung-gyu: Kim Seung-gyu has obviously been in the running for the starting job, but seemed like Kim Jin-hyeon had passed him after the Asian Cup. However, Kim Seung-gyu made a few fine saves to keep Korea’s clean sheet streak alive.

Negatives
Jung Wooyoung: Man he was shit. Late into challenges, poor at distributing… underwhelming to say the least. He has some good games and some poor games, and this was on the poor side. When at his best, he’s good at recycling possession and continuing play, but at his worst, he’s unsure of what to do, lost on the pitch, late into challenges and prone for turnovers when he plays a rare forward pass. I’m not saying write him off entirely, but it seems like while Han Kookyoung and Kwon Changhoon are purposeful accompaniments to KSY, Jung Wooyoung is sort of… lost?

Park Jooho: He’s really out of form. Bad crosses (I didn’t see the whole game, I’ve read this on a couple sites though), heavy touches, didn’t put in much of a shift. He’s obviously rusty from his lack of playing time at Borussia Dortmund – doesn’t matter what club you’re at if you’re only training.

*Couple more Jae thoughts*

Who knows?

Nam Tae-hee: I can’t make up my mind how well or bad Nam did against Thailand. He played a perfect cross to Lee Jeong-hyeob (who couldn’t finish), and looked lively on the ball and willing to take defenders on (a relative rarity among Korean players). On the other hand he hung onto the ball too often it felt like, and he doesn’t seem an adequate fit on the wing. It feels like Nam remains (on paper) the best 10 for Korea if they go with the 4-2-3-1 given he’ll play those through balls and take players on, but the reality is that he may just not be good enough.

 

About Tim Lee 321 Articles
The maple syrup guzzling kimchijjigae craving Korean-Canadian, eh?

6 Comments

  1. Jung Wooyoung was terrible.. His first touches were poor, he made some poor decisions with his passes, as well as bad positioning.. Also, Nam Taehee; he spent far too much time fluffing about with the ball, instead of passing and creating chances for his teammates when they were making runs behind the Thai defence, this guy just dragged the ball and was killing the tempo.
    As for Park Jooho… I don’t think it’s only down to lack of game time; he’d been playing like this since he moved to BVB. Indecisive, lacking offensive mentality, etc. plus, has he forgotten how to use his right foot? He looked really awkward out there.

    Only positives I can say about the game was Suk Hyunjun and Koh Myongjin. Koh played quite nicely in CM, winning 50/50 balls, creating chances and even making runs himself. Suk is a beast, the guy really knows how to handle his opponents. Making runs behind, going wide as well as making shots on target even with those half-chances.

    Unfortunately the last two games have only highlighted our problems playing without Son Heungmin.

    • Don’t think LJH’s participation changed anything for SHJ. I think his performance today is also because Thailand allowed more space than he’s seen recently as the Thais did try to come out and attack. I think he can lead the line himself – we seem to need 2 wide midfielders and 3 in the centre to properly function. Also Son and Koo are better off not being forwards.

  2. Hey Tim,

    Considering the fact that they had to play in a hot-ass sauna environment, I’m glad they were able to secure themselves the win needed even if it was just one goal from SHJ. They were terrible, making ONLY a lot of backpasses around and not advancing forward or no dangerous 1:1 dribbling past the defenders. LJH is such a mystery and I honestly think he is better off as a last minute attempt to score a goal type of player in the end. His qualities as a player isn’t just there. It’s unfortunate we couldn’t widen the gap with Thailand, but it was a disappointing win for sure. Players that I don’t want to see is Jung Woo-Young, Kim Chang-Soo, PJH, and KJS. KCS, that guy just can’t dribble past anyone or can even get a decent cross! Anyways, thanks for your write up as always.

    • Tim here

      Makes sense. I’m frustrated by the result but given the formation and new players, it’s understandable. Lee Junghyub is a very limited player and I’m hoping that his ceiling will grow with Ulsan, but I’m not convinced. You’ve got a strong target man, can play with ball at feet type like Suk Hyunjun, and you’ve got a quicker, smarter Hwang Uijo. Stielike likes taking two of each position to anything so to be honest I’m still wondering where Lee Jeonghyub fits in. He’ll need to have a strong season with Ulsan to unseat Hwang, but if he can’t I’m comfortable with Suk and Hwang as our two strikers…

      I guess the one thing Lee has going for him is that he’s a clutch player. Hwang hasn’t been entirely impressive and hasn’t earned his spot because of his performance but rather a lack of options. We’ll have to continue to observe.

Join in the Tavern's conversations -Leave a comment...

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.