GUADALAJARA, Mexico, June 11 : South Korea coach Hong Myung-bo said his team had followed his pre-match instructions to the letter after they staged a 2-1 comeback victory over the Czech Republic in their World Cup Group A opener on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After falling behind to a second-half header from Ladislav Krejci, the Koreans rallied through goals from Hwang In-beom and Oh Hyeon-gyu to secure three crucial points in Guadalajara.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Before the match I gave two messages: not give up until the end and unite as one,” he told a press conference. “Whether on the pitch or not, we need to play as one team.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The victory came despite an uncharacteristic off-day for captain Son Heung-min, who missed five chances in the first half alone before being replaced by eventual match-winner Oh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the misfiring performance, the coach was quick to defend his veteran forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Son is our best player and is also a very stable captain. We believe that Son did his best,” the coach said, though he added the team must “brush up” on finishing their chances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Korea are tied on three points with Mexico at the top of the group, setting up a high-stakes clash against the tournament co-hosts on June 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Both teams scored three points … the next match will be very important,” Hong said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GUADALAJARA, Mexico, June 11 : South Korea coach Hong Myung-bo said his team had followed his pre-match instructions to the letter after they staged a 2-1 comeback victory over the Czech Republic in their World Cup Group A opener on Thursday. After falling behind to a second-half header from Ladislav Krejci, the Koreans rallied through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416043,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416042\/revisions\/416043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}