Korean soccer is awesome! Son Heung-min vs. Pochettino Confronted Hong Myung-bo, confirmed to travel to Mexico in September
May 14, 2025
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The Korea Football Association announced in a press release on the 14th that the national soccer team led by head coach Hong Myung-bo will face the U.S. and Mexico in the U.S., the stage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup finals in North Korea and China, in September.
The association will first hold a warm-up match with the United States at the Red Bull Arena in New Jersey at 17:00 local time on September 6 (06:00 a.m. on the 7th in Korea). He will then play his second match against Mexico on the 9th. The location and kick-off time against Mexico will be confirmed later. It is the first time in two years that the national team will play an overseas warm-up match since the match between Wales and Saudi Arabia in England in September 2023.
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The match against Mexico came five years after the warm-up match in Viner Neustat, Austria, in November 2020. Mexico ranks 17th in the FIFA rankings, but unlike the U.S., South Korea is far inferior to Mexico with four wins, two draws and eight losses. In particular, Mexico is a team that lost to South Korea in both the 1998 World Cup in France and the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Attention is focusing on whether he can avenge himself through this warm-up match.
The most notable point in the away game in the U.S. in September is the battle between Son Heung-min and U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino. Pochettino is the coach who made Son Heung-min today. Pochettino, who has been at the helm of Tottenham since 2014, recruited Son Heung-min to Tottenham in the summer of 2015.
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Pochettino and Son Heung-min played a leading role in Tottenham's heyday in the late 2010s. He left a history of being the runner-up in the EPL in the 2016-2017 season and the runner-up in the European Champions League (UCL) in the 2018-2019 season. Although it was regrettable that he did not win the championship in the end, Tottenham, with Pochettino and Son Heung-min, was very strong, and the club's status rose significantly.
However, early in the 2019-2020 season, Pochettino was replaced due to poor performance. Pochettino has been rumored to return several times since leaving Tottenham. Whenever managers lost their position at Tottenham, rumors of Pochettino's return broke out. This is because Pochettino also wanted to return to Tottenham. But each time Tottenham made a different choice.
Pochettino took the helm of the U.S. national team after failing at Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and Chelsea. Since taking the helm in September last year, it has yet to bring about the effect of appointing Pochettino. For Pochettino, the showdown with South Korea is also expected to be very important.
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Prior to the away game in September, South Korea's national team coach Hong Myung-bo will announce the list of national teams to join the final two games of the third round of the North-China World Cup and the match between Iraq and Kuwait at the Korea Football Center on the 26th. Game 9 of the third World Cup qualifying round against Iraq will be played in an away match in Iraq on the 5th of next month (local time), and will face Kuwait in Korea on the 10th.
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Reporter Kim Dae-sik rlaeotlr2024@sportschosun.com
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
