New-look team to face Hiddinks Turkey

By Yoon Chul

The new-look South Korean football team will play a friendly Thursday (KST) against Turkey, managed by Guus Hiddink, who led Korea to the semifinal in the 2002 World Cup.

For the South Korean squad, it is the first time in 13 years to meet Hiddink as an opponent.

In head-to-head matches the 32nd ranked Korea trails the 31st placed Turkey with a 1-1-4 record.

This is the first match after veterans Park Ji-sung and Lee Young-pyo retired from the national team. It will provide manager Cho Kwang-rae with a chance to find new players for the 2014 World Cup.

Cho is likely to play Koo Ja-cheol of Vfl Wolfsburg in the position vacated by Park.

Korea’s manager wanted to play Koo on the left of midfield, with Park Chu-young in the center and Lee Chung-yong on the right to support young target man Ji Dong-won. But as Lee bruised his knee during the English Premier League match against Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday, he may only appear in the second half if Cho needs to change his tactics.

In order to strengthen the middle Cho plans to use Celtic’s Ki Sung-yueng or Lee Yong-rae of Suwon BlueWings to combat the strong Turkish midfield.

Either Hong Chul of Seongnam Chunma and Yun Suk-young of Chunnam Dragons, both just 21, will replace Lee Young-pyo at left back.

Cho favors an attacking approach and Hong is more of an offensive threat, though Yun is more reliable defensively.

Park Ji-sung named Kim Bo-kyung of Cerezo Osaka and Son Heung-min of Hamburg SV as capable of replacing him in midfield, when he announced his retirement last week.