South Korea’s coach, Portugal’s Paulo Bento, confessed on Wednesday that he preferred not to face Portugal in Group H of the 2022 World Cup, in Qatar, guaranteeing he will face the Asian squad in the “best way” will “defend”. “.
On the eve of his World Cup debut, in what will be his second as coach, after managing Portugal between 2011 and 2014, the 53-year-old coach spoke about the duel with the team from the corners, despite the only scheduled for December 2.
“I will certainly not be immune. I am Portuguese since birth and I will remain Portuguese until I die. During the match I will be Portuguese and of course I will try to defend the Korean national team that I represent.” in the best way”started by saying Paulo Bento.
The Portuguese coach, who reached the semi-finals of Euro 2012 in Ukraine and Poland in the service of the Portuguese team, recalled the cases of compatriots Fernando Santos, current national coach, and Carlos Queiroz, from Iran, when asked about the moment of looking at your country.
“There is still some time left to talk about this game, but that happens in this kind of competition, where coaches represent certain countries and come from others. It has already happened with the current Portuguese coach who represents Greece, with Queiroz in Iran and play me now,” he recalled.
Afterwards he admitted that he “would have liked to have avoided Portugal”: “Of course, but you can’t have everything. It’s preparing match by match, in a professional and serious way”.
On Thursday, the Koreans will make their debut in Group H, against Uruguay, which also has Ghana, and Paulo Bento set the tone to try to get the best results.
“The idea is to play and compete as best we can, use our qualities and try to condition the opponent’s qualities. I hope tomorrow [quinta-feira] will be a balanced game and we will try to do what we know, to collectively be at an extremely high level,” he predicted.
The team now led by Diego Alonso earned praise from Paulo Bento, who credited the player who may be in better shape in the South American squad, Real Madrid midfielder Fede Valverde.
“I think the way Uruguay made this transition shows what they are worth and what they are as a team. It’s not easy to make a move after 16 years with the same coach.” [Óscar Tabárez]whom I have good memories of, because he was my coach for a season [Oviedo]🇧🇷 [Valverde] he is a fantastic player, with an extremely high physical dimension and has a great influence on the way of playing [do Uruguai]🇧🇷 He is on the level of Kevin de Bruyne [do Manchester City]are the best,” he emphasized.
Finally, he spoke of the Asian national team’s biggest “star”, winger Son, of Tottenham’s England side, who recently underwent surgery on his face, so he will have to wear a mask in World Cup matches, an “adaptation it is not creating problems,” said Paulo Bento, although there is “some risk”.
“The adjustment to the mask is not a problem. In recent days he has been training with the group, as we had planned. Tomorrow [quinta-feira] we will see how the game goes, hopefully he can feel as comfortable as possible and we will try to use the best possible strategy so that he can feel good during the game. He knows and we know, given the injury he has sustained, that there is a risk,” he explained.
Son underwent surgery on November 4 to correct fractures to four bones in his face after sustaining an injury in the Champions League against Marseille.
On Thursday, South Korea will face Uruguay at the Education City Stadium in Al Rayyan from 4 p.m. (1 p.m. in Lisbon).
Source: DN
