South Korea has a record that participated in the World Cup in nine straight games since the Mexico World Cup in 1986. However, for South Korea, it will be hard to make the record in ten straight games. According to Korea Herald, South Korea will take on five Middle East countries in the final preliminary round of the World Cup. Moreover, Bento, the head coach of South Korea's soccer team, said that he is happy that his team is well-balanced and organized.

▲ The drew of final round of World Cup

South Korea had difficulties before organizing into groups. South Korea missed the top seed because Iran and Japan have higher FIFA ranks than South Korea. So, South Korea is in the same group as Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. All countries except South Korea are middle-east countries. According to an article of The Hankyoreh, Bento said that Iran has sufficient bottom, Iraq and Syria have many skilled players, and the United Arab Emirates has a good command of Dutch soccer because of the Dutch soccer team head coach.

▲ Iran player is having a command of bed soccer.

South Korea will likely have many difficulties in the World Cup final preliminary round. First, South Korea will face a home-and-away schedule, so they return to South Korea and go back to the Middle East in a few days. The distance between South Korea and the Middle East is about 7,700 km. Therefore, South Korea's players will be physically challenged and will have jet lag. Also, Middle East countries use time-wasting antics called bed soccer. This is the tactic that when they win or are in favorable condition, they put a dray on time. South Korea has suffered many times for these time-wasting antics.

No matter how hard it is, South Korea has an advantage over soccer in Asia. According to WI Global, the possibility of winning in the World cup game is 79.92 percent. It is quite high value, so I hope the South Korean team will pass the final round and get a good grade in the World Cup in 2022.

July 17, 2021

By Yejun Byun