Korea's 'prospects are pretty good' vs. Mexico
Trysta Krick and Jay Croucher preview the upcoming World Cup match between Mexico and South Korea, where the host country will have a home advantage for the second day of Group A play.
Video Transcript
Let's talk a little World Cup, Jay.
Mexico, one of the top teams in the tournament, played great in their first match.
They play a South Korea team in the middle of a bit of a tussle with their local media after local Korean media were heard on a hot mic during practice this week mocking their star player for skipping military service.
Now there's an entire controversy.
It has led them to boycotting the local media for the duration of the tournament.
They actually are saying they are more unified than ever.
this match is in Guadalajara, which I think is super meaningful.
How do you see these two teams matching up?
What's the likelihood, in your view, that they can maybe pull a draw or an upset with all this happening in the background?
Yeah, I think Korea's prospects are pretty good here to get a result, to get a win or a draw.
Mexico, obviously riding high coming off that opening win, against South Africa, but I think that there were some underlying concerns in the way that they played.
One, they just didn't seem super well set up structurally in terms of how they wanted to defend.
they were kind of shifting through this man-to-man press, the zonal press.
They just didn't seem to have a lot of cohesion, and I think that the fact that they went up so early kind of bailed them out a little bit in terms of how the game unfolded.
They were only able to create two big chances the entire game against South Africa, which I think is a red flag given that they were playing against 10 men for 40 minutes or so.
So I think there's some concerns there with Mexico.
I thought that South Korea's first game was much more impressive, getting that win, against Czechia.
They dominated that game, on XG 2.3 to 0.8. in terms of, touches in the opposition box, South Korea doubled, the Czechs there.
So I think that ultimately Mexico, clearly the rightful favorite, just home ground advantage just matters for so much, and that is going to be, a clear advantage.
I don't think either of these teams have a ton of amazing individual quality.
You know, guys like Heung-Min Son, who was all well three or four years ago, hasn't really been at that level recently.
So, I think this ultimately is going to end up a draw, which will leave, the fate of the group in the balance going into the final game.
