Asian Cup

[J.Kim]

I highly doubt that anyone else is watching this during what is becoming a critical junction for league play, but I just had to comment on the Korean national team's new style of play.

In previous international competition Korea always used to play a fairly outdated and sometimes unwatchable style of play that required certain type of players that Korea was just unable to produce. Now it seems like with new coach Cho Kwang Rae in place, they've taken a page out of the style of play that's currently popular in Europe.
It looks particularly similar to Arsenal's style of play, a sort of hybrid 4-2-3-1/4-3-3, making use of a false nine, and with the wingers taking infield runs with the space created by the false nine, often switching places with the false nine as well. LB/RB making runs down the side, the holding midfielder playing back closer to the CBs, and with the AMF playing a Fabregas type role and the other MF playing box to box (a bit like Wilshere). The back line also seems to play higher up on the pitch as well.

From the highlights I've seen and tactical previews/reviews I read, that seems to be the case
http://www.footkorean.net/asian-cup-tac ... -korea-rep.

It's not perfect right now, since they've only been playing with the style for a couple of months, but a lot of the commentators are saying that this is the most attractive soccer that they've seen an Asian team play.

I just had to comment on this because, even as recently as back in the World Cup, they were playing a pretty unattractive brand of soccer that couldn't even link passes that well and would often results in a dump and chase type of play.
With the new tactics, they're playing much more attractive and in my eyes, seem to be playing a lot better than they used to. Koo Ja Cheol (the AMF in the Fabregas-type role as a playmaker), seems to be thriving in this, even scoring 4 goals so far in the tournament (round robin just wrapped up and it's going into knockout stages)

Anyway, is anyone else following this?

[magik9113]

I haven't been able to watch yet but I have been following the results. I am starved for some competitive international matches and am looking forward to watching some of the knock-out games. I'll try and catch S. Korea, as i know they're one of the better teams of the tournament anyway, and Iran was the best of the group stages in terms of results

[J.Kim]

I haven't been able to watch yet but I have been following the results. I am starved for some competitive international matches and am looking forward to watching some of the knock-out games. I'll try and catch S. Korea, as i know they're one of the better teams of the tournament anyway, and Iran was the best of the group stages in terms of results

Results have been sort of underwhelming considering that they've played against Bahrain, India and Australia but that is to be expected since they haven't fully adapted to the new style of play.

I'm making this comment more so because I haven't really seen ANY Asian team in the past 5-6 years or so to make any sort of fundamental tactical shift as Korea has. Asian Cups in the past have been particularly drab because of this. I mean Japan's shape, more recently, has featured 4-1-4-1 but it really hadn't given the LB/RBs the license to go forward, nor did we see much interchanging of positions/ST play a false nine role that's become so popular in European soccer. Most Asian teams in international competitions play really conservative, crowd their own third and try and play the counter.

[J.Kim]

That was an ugly game between Iran-Korea.

Korea gets too cute around the net and becomes Arsenal lite. Lots of possession, some attempts at net, no goals to show for it for a while.

And my god. Iran. What a poor display of sportsmanship with all the grass rolling and the time wasting.

Yoon Bit Garam with a nice goal to save Korea and get them through to the semis against Japan. Should be another good match.

[UDRIH14]

australia in the final against japan, both are about even in h2h matches so far

only thing i hate about the aus team is the aus media around it, they love to jump on the bandwagon when any aus athlete is doing fine playing under the radar and winning, build them up put them in the spotlight more weight on their shoulders to succeed, on the final day they choke and the aus media just rips it into them....

i hope aus team wins this tournament, they usually dont give a damn about weak ass tournaments and play down the level of the opponents on the day....the more tournaments they get involve, the more experience they gain in different styles of play out there and more for the viewers to watch the national side play against good competition instead of the usual crap against bottom feeder teams...

winning in qatar will be a good stick it up to them after wasting 50m on a failed WC bid attempt...

[J.Kim]

I think Japan is going to win this one. They're just better conditioned than the Australian team.

[Slava]

Great finish to win the championship.

[magik9113]

congrats to Japan

[Foye]

What happened to Kagawa?

Dude was fun to watch. Sad that he's now out for the season.

I don't know why they don't play this Asian and African Cups when they play the European Cup. It's kinda bad for the clubs to lose their players while they got regular season games.

[5DOM]

What happened to Kagawa?

Dude was fun to watch. Sad that he's now out for the season.

I don't know why they don't play this Asian and African Cups when they play the European Cup. It's kinda bad for the clubs to lose their players while they got regular season games.

I'm guessing their domestic leagues have different schedules

[J.Kim]

What happened to Kagawa?

Dude was fun to watch. Sad that he's now out for the season.

I don't know why they don't play this Asian and African Cups when they play the European Cup. It's kinda bad for the clubs to lose their players while they got regular season games.

I'm guessing their domestic leagues have different schedules

Nah, they usually had it in summer.

Except this Asian Cup, they had it during winter because Qatar was hosting.