South Koreans rue extra toil, hosts target glory
Kim Hak-Bum had a feeling the Asian Games football redraw would have an impact on his team and the South Korea U23 coach was proven right when the United Arab Emirates were drawn in Group E on Wednesday.
That meant the South Koreans, the 2014 men’s football gold medallists, would have to play an additional group stage match in their bid to retain the title.
The redraw in Kuala Lumpur was to include the UAE and Palestine, who were accidentally omitted during the initial draw in Jakarta on July 5.
Besides South Korea and the UAE, Group E also has Kyrgyzstan, Bahrain and Malaysia, while Palestine joined hosts Indonesia, Hong Kong, Laos and Taiwan in Group A.
Kim said playing an additional match would pose challenges to his squad but believed his men have a good chance of defending the gold medal won on home soil in 2014.
“Having to play one more match than other teams in such hot conditions will be an even bigger challenge than analysing opponents,” Kim said.
“But no matter how difficult our situation may be, it’s something we have to overcome. And I have faith in my players to come through and deliver a good result.”
Meanwhile, Indonesia hopes hosting the Asian Games will help revive the fortunes of its troubled national football team and act as a springboard for their qualification for the 2024 Paris Olympics, the nation’s football association said.
Indonesia were barred from international football in 2015 due to government meddling in their domestic league, shutting them out of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup and 2019 Asian Cup.
Football’s world governing body Fifa lifted the ban in 2016, but the men’s team is currently languishing at 164th in the world, slotted between Belize and Fiji, despite the game’s huge popularity in a country of more than 250 million people.
“Asian Games is a starting point and the PSSI [the Football Association of Indonesia] wants to achieve more than that. If we have to set a short-term plan that would be the Olympics in 2024,” Joko Driyono, deputy chairman of the PSSI, said.
Driyono said the PSSI and the government were committed over the next three to five years to improving infrastructure for soccer at all levels to support the target.
Spain’s former U21 coach Luis Milla was appointed manager of Indonesia at the start of 2017 in order to overhaul the national squad.
The 26-team men’s football tournament will be played in four stadiums in West Java province.
“Of course, we always try to win and become a champion but our primary target is to win the hearts of Indonesian people with our performance,” Indonesia’s Montenegrinborn forward Ilija Spasojevic said.
Despite the optimism, some fans remain sceptical.
“The development of soccer in Indonesia is very poor,” said Muhammad Ali, 49, after playing a game on the rooftop of an abandoned building in capital Jakarta.
“As a national team we are still underperforming, we can’t even be the regional champion, how can we top Asia’s ranking?”
Indonesia have played Thailand and South Korea in recent warm-up games, losing both matches, which came on the back of a 3-0 win over Singapore in March.
Indonesia’s best result in the Asian Games was reaching the round of 16 in 2014 but Milla believes that with solid preparation, the Young Garudas can make the semi-finals on home soil.
Of course, we always try to win and become a champion but our primary target is to win the hearts of Indonesian people. ILIJA SPASOJEVIC Indonesia forward