KUALA LUMPUR: Defending champions South Korea suffered an early blow to their Asia Cup hopes following an untimely injury to their playmaker Hong Eun-seong.
The centrehalf fractured his finger during a training session and the Koreans have decided to call up another player to replace him for the tournament, which begins in Ipoh tomorrow.
Team manager Shin Seok-kyu said yesterday that midfielder Jeong-byung is the other change from the team who played in the FIH World Hockey League semi-finals in Johor Baru last month.
Jeong Byung has been replaced by Cho Suk-hoon.
“Eun-seong is a big loss to the team. His finger is fractured and there’s no point risking him in the Asia Cup. Other than these two players, the team is almost the same as the one who played in Johor Baru where we finished fourth,” said Seok-kyu, who is glad that his team will be under no pressure to win the Asia Cup.
The Asia Cup is a qualifier for the 2014 World Cup in Holland and the Koreans have already qualified for it following Argentina’s triumph in the Pan-American Cup.
But the Koreans are not about to surrender the Asia Cup without a fight because they view the tournament as the start of their Asian Games programme.
“Yes, we have qualified for the World Cup. But we still want to win the Asia Cup as we have brought our best players ... we see this as the first step in our Asian Games preparations,” said Seok-kyu.
“We (South Korea) are hosting the Asian Games next year and that is the qualifying stage for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. We do not want to fail in the Asiad. So, from now on, we will use all the coming tournaments to mould our Asiad squad.”
South Korea are in Group B for the Asia Cup and their first match is against Bangladesh on Sunday. They will then play against India on Tuesday and Oman on Thursday.
Limited time offer:
Just RM5 per month.
