French Head Coach ``Korea is Tough Team``

The French National Soccer Team, the strongest team in the world, arrived at Inchoen International Airport for the 2001 Confederation Cup. The French Team is supposed to play the Korean National Team in the opening day on 30th.

The French National Team is comprised of 42 members, including 23 players and staffs. Some starting members such as Zinedine Zidane (Juventus), David Trezeguet (Monaco), Lilian Thuram (AC Parma) were not included in the player roster, but the 98 World Cup members such as Marcel Desailly (Chelsea), Christian Karembeu (Middlesbrough), Youri Djorkaeff (Kaiserslautern) and Nicolas Anelka (Paris St. Germain) will play in the game.

The French National Team moved to the Taegu Park Hotel and held a press conference. And after visiting the Cha Bum-Kun Soccer School, they had a practice for one and half hours at Taegu People`s Stadium.

The French Head Coach, Roger Lemerre did not mention about the concrete objective in the Confederation Cup, saying in the press conference, that ``the result of soccer only can be known at the end of the game.``

``The Korean team is a very tough team considering the recent records. Especially, the opening game is always hard to play. I think the opening game with Korea is very important because there are many tie games in the premier match,`` he told. ``Although some starting members could not come together, but the young decent players are expected to play well. Through the practice from tomorrow, I will check their potentials. Zidane is Zidane. Nobody can replace him. But I have trust in such young players like Djorkaeff and Vieira.``

Meanwhile, the Korean National Team, the Hiddink squad, had a tactic practice at Taegu Susung Stadium with Ko Jong-Su who returned from the Asian Club Championship and joined the team. Head Coach Guus Hiddink illustrated his confidence after the intensive team practice saying ``We all are expecting. I like the big game.``

And the Mexican team had two team tactic practices at the Misari Soccer Stadium, and the Australian team had intensive practice at the Sunwon World Cup Stadium.

Bae Keuk-In bae2150@donga.com