South Korea set to unleash new penalty corner specialist
KUALA LUMPUR: Former champions South Korea will use the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup hockey tournament to test their penalty corner batteries, which they hope will turn out to be their ace in the Athens Olympics in August.
For the invitational tournament, which begins here on Thursday, South Korea have three top-class flickers in their side. The known specialists in the side are Yeo Woon-kon and Lee Jung-seon but the Koreans now claim that they have another player to rely on for goals in the set pieces – Kang Seong-jung.
Coach Kim Young-kyu said yesterday: “It is clear that penalty corners will continue to play a major part in scoring goals and we want to improve on our scoring rate.
“It is good that Woon-kon is back in the team after a short absence. We will be up against some of the best defenders in this tournament and it will be good to test how we fare against them in our set pieces.”
The Koreans also have in their side a lethal striker in Song Seung-tae. He also took a break from the game after the 2002 Busan Asian Games and only made a return to the side in November for an invitational meet in Hong Kong.
Young-kyu said that their team now were much stronger than the one they had for tournaments last year and they were close to a final squad for the Olympics.
“We have recalled many of the experienced players. The task over the next eight months is to fine tune the team and get as many matches as possible,” he added.
Young-kyu said that after the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, they would go to Perth for a one-month stint and in March, the players will be involved in the month-long domestic national championships.
The final phase in June and July will see the team in Europe and they will also play in the Panasonic Cup in Germany.
“We were going through a transition period. But the return of the senior players has strengthened the side. I’m sure we will be competitive here in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup tournament,” said Young-kyu.
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