Nat`l Soccer Coach Cuts 4 Players

The coach of the Korean national soccer team cut Monday four players from the provisional 30-man roster to play in the 2010 World Cup next month.

Huh Jung-moo in a meeting with his coaching staff cut the roster to 26 players at the National Football Center in Paju, Gyeonggi Province. The final 23-man list will be announced June 1.

The 26 players will go to training camp in Austria and play in exhibition games abroad, including one versus Japan in Saitama May 24.

The four players cut Monday were Cho Won-hee and Kang Min-soo of the K-League’s Suwon Samsung Bluewings; Kim Chi-woo of FC Seoul; and Hwang Jae-won of the Pohang Steelers.

“We considered the team’s performance and the players’ positions. Kim has apparently not fully recovered from a hernia. Kang and Cho have recently showed poor performances, which means they have lost in the competition (to make the team),” Huh said.

Three of the four players did not play in Sunday`s exhibition game against Ecuador, which Korea won 2-0. The one who did play, Hwang, made mistakes according to the coach.

“Hwang has a lot of talent, but made several big mistakes while playing for the national team,” Huh said.

Two midfielders and two defenders were cut, but the team retained all six of its strikers. “We decided to cut two defenders since certain positions overlapped. Overall, we chose two players for each position. Of course, we also considered that certain players can play two positions,” the coach said.

“FIFA regulations say the final 23-man roster must be registered by June 1. We cannot guess which player will get hurt before this deadline. All 26 players named today will head for Japan and Austria. Those not on the final roster might be allowed to go to South Africa to learn good lessons from the World Cup.”

After resting for three days, the team will train at the Paju center Wednesday. It will then head for Japan Saturday for the exhibition game.

In Austria, Korea will play exhibition games against Belarus May 30 and Spain June 3 before leaving for South Africa June 5.

creating@donga.com