2023 Asian cup semifinals, Jordan vs Korea

South Korea met Jordan in the group stage, and met again in the semifinals, the way to the finals.

At the group stage, South Korea struggled quite a bit against Jordan, showing a lack of focus against strong pressure and the flashy individual skills of their forward players.

In this match, I hoped to handle the situation better by leveraging the experience from that time and have a much smoother game.

However, as everyone knows, we failed, and South Korea concluded our 2023 Asian Cup journey in the semifinals.

 

Then let's delve into the match.

First, the starting lineup.
The biggest point in South Korea's lineup was one positive and one negative.

Starting with the positive, for the first time since the beginning of the Asian Cup, 

we deployed a 3-midfielder formation.
Park Yong-woo, Hwang In-beom, and Lee Jae-sung occupied the central midfield, while upfront,

our trio consisted of Son Heungmin, Hwang Heechan, and Lee Kangin.

The reason behind opting for the 3-midfielder formation has been a topic of discussion throughout my Asian Cup review.
In brief, the aim of deploying three midfielders was to stabilize both offense and defense.

Finally, the intention to try stabilizing it (whether it was genuinely intended is dubious) is a positive aspect.

 

Regardless of what anyone says, the absence of Kim Minjae was a negative point.

Due to accumulated yellow cards, Kim Minjae was unable to participate in this match. 

In his place, Kim Young-kwon and Jung Seung-hyun formed the center-back partnership and started the game.

Honestly, the yellow card Kim Min-jae received in the quarterfinal against Australia, which was his final warning, was somewhat unfair as it was for time-wasting, but anyway, this is inevitable.

The influence of Kim Min-jae is indescribable; 

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

No matter how much Kim Young-kwon and Jung Seung-hyun are considered top center-backs domestically,
if Kim Minjae is absent from the top European clubs, his absence is inevitably a setback for the national team's starting lineup.

 

From the outset, Jordan pressed aggressively, much like in the previous match.

However, for some reason, perhaps due to the significant exhaustion of our South Korean players, 

they struggled to cope with that pressure for quite some time.
None of the advantages we anticipated from fielding three midfielders materialized.
We couldn't maintain possession, switch play effectively, or execute primary defensive duties.
This seemed more attributable to the players' form and concentration rather than tactics, as once they had the ball, their vision seemed restricted.
Even when there were open spaces available, they either failed to exploit them or opted to dribble or pass towards the side under intense pressure.

However, it's not like our defensive setup was well-organized either. 

There were significant gaps, and the movement to find open spaces was noticeably lacking.

Moreover, there were numerous minor passing errors. 

Passes were occasionally too short or too long, resulting in frequent disruptions in play.

 

So, as prepared, Jordan distributed the ball forward and effectively utilized the skills of Al-Tamari and Al-Naimat in passing and dribbling.

This simple strategy proved effective against our national team. 

While we failed to record a single shot on target in the first half, Jordan managed to register four shots on target.

These were not just weak attempts lacking power and direction; they were genuinely dangerous shots.

The reason we managed to keep a clean sheet in the first half despite this was solely due to the skill of our goalkeeper Cho Hyun-woo.
Just like the performance he displayed against Germany in the 2018 World Cup, 

he repeatedly denied Jordan's shots with animalistic reflexes.

Indeed, he is a shining light.

 

Conversely, the defense was like haystacks infront of a bulldozer.

Especially when it came to defending against Al-Tamari's dribbling,

there were consistently 2-3 defenders swarming him, but they just couldn't figure out how to handle him.
Every time those scenes played out, I couldn't help but wish Kim Min-jae was there.

There might have been differences in individual abilities and form that were unavoidable.

Of course, we shouldn't have allowed such situations to arise in the first place.

 

Why didn't the tactical setup work out in more detail?

As I mentioned earlier, just having three midfielders in the center increased our numbers, 

but that was about it.

Firstly, the positioning was off.

The gap between the attacking and defensive lines was too wide. 

Two out of the three midfielders often pushed up towards the attacking line, leaving Park Yong-woo almost isolated below, trying to receive the ball amidst this wide gap.

This aspect is puzzling and hard to comprehend.

 

Firstly, Park Yong-woo is not the type of player who handles pressure well.

It's not about blaming the player's skill; it's about not assigning him to that role.

If you ask how it should have been done, I would have dropped Hwang In-beom and Lee Jae-sung deeper into midfield, expanding the options for build-up play.

However, this naturally slows down the build-up speed, which is a trade-off.

 

If we don't want to sacrifice speed, then we would attempt long passes to exploit the space behind the opposition full-backs or behind the defensive line to initiate footraces.
By doing so, we could push the opponent's defensive line back as a whole.

And what led to the opportunity for the first goal against us was Park Yong-woo's back pass in that situation.

Firstly, when Park Yongwoo received the ball, the situation was as follows.

 

In this situation, Park Yong-woo didn't have many options.

Passing to Kim Tae-hwan would subject him to pressure from the opponent's number 11 and 2.
Passing to Hwang In-beom would invite pressure from numbers 10 and 8.
Passing to Jung Seung-hyun, Seol Young-woo, or those ahead of him would be blocked by the defenders.

Given the choice between playing a long pass into space or passing to the open Kim Young-kwon,

Park Yong-woo opted for what seemed like the safer option and attempted the pass to Kim Young-kwon.

This move was anticipated.

Al-Tamari, the number 10 and ace of Jordan, intercepted the pass intended for Kim Young-kwon and made a diagonal dribble, drawing three defenders towards him.

Then he passed to Al-Naimat, who facing the onrushing goalkeeper, calmly chipped the ball into the net.

 

And not even 15 minutes into the tournament stage, we conceded multiple goals for the first time.

This time, the goal was conceded due to Lee Kang-in.

After the first goal, Park Yong-woo was substituted off, and Cho Gyu-sung came on,

reverting us back to a 2-midfielder setup.

At this point, when building up from the back, Lee Kang-in dropped deeper to assist.

So far, so good.

Kim Taehwan passed to Hwang In-beom, who then passed to Lee Kang-in.

Hwang In-beom clearly gestured, even pointing with his fingers, indicating he wanted Lee Kang-in to move into the open space on the left side.

But for some reason, Lee Kang-in decided to dribble into the crowded central area, commonly referred to as the "dead zone."

 

I really don't know why he did that, and it seemed like Hwang In-beom was quite flustered too,

as he continued to signal for me to move to the left, but the ball had already been intercepted.

Once again, Jordan's ace dribblers relied on their individual skills to penetrate our defense relentlessly.

Despite our defenders sticking to them in groups of three, they couldn't stop anything and ended up conceding another goal.

It was the worst-case scenario.

 

Afterwards, there wasn't any significant change in the course of the game.

South Korea failed to create any threatening moments until the end,
and there were no tactical adjustments made, only simple substitutions.

Even those substitutions... I just don't understand why...

The same issues that have been mentioned repeatedly still persisted glaringly.
The movement in attack, the absence of detailed tactics, and now, 

it seemed like the players had reached their physical limits, as their movements became noticeably slower.

It's all there in the records.

In the second half, we maintained possession, but we attempted fewer shots than Jordan,
and amidst that, we didn't even manage a single shot on target.

Considering the high possession, our passing accuracy wasn't satisfactory either.
With that level of possession, our passing accuracy should have been at least in the mid-90s percentile,

which indicates how inaccurate our passes were.

 

The Jordanian players consistently wasted time, disrupting the tempo, and as the South Korean team gradually lost momentum, they became increasingly desperate, unable to do anything but concede the game.

We truly had no right to win.

The fact that we made it this far was a miracle, and miracles don't last forever.

There's much more to say beyond the game itself, but I'll save that for another post.