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World Cup: Group A: South Korea vs. Czechia, 6/11/2026

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What's the result?

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    26
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Live in the Now

Live in the Now

Registered User
Dec 17, 2005
55,211
10,150
LA
This game is late, at 10 PM Eastern time. I don't know how or why this was decided. The game is in Guadalajara and I said in the other thread there's a potential for a regional strike, it could affect these games but I'm not sure it will.

I can't say I'm a South Korea expert but I'm looking at their squad and it's a very experienced one. They also didn't leave any really experienced players at home. I am hoping for them to come in as runner up in this group so we can go to their game. There are so many Koreans in LA and I think it would be a great atmosphere. I really think they did this all backwards where they should have placed the teams in areas where they'd have a lot of fans.

I think this is one of the best games of the first round. South Korea has more quality on paper but these teams are pretty evenly matched and they're both playing for a result. The other variable here is elevation. Guadalajara sits at a mile high, the rain is supposed to be really bad there as well and there's potential for a thunderstorm delay. Sounds great. I think they'll play to a draw here.
 
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I assume the time is to suit the S. Korean audience? Or at least I hope so, because it's at 4am Czech time.

I've actually seen us play Korea in a friendly before, I believe they beat us. That said, I'd agree it's anyone's game, could really go either way and a draw is a fair prediction.
 
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On the one hand I don't trust this SK squad, on the other Czechia might be the most vanilla team in the entire tournament

0-0 draw
 
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My ticket from South Korea-Bolivia in 1994, looking forward to the next few weeks. I'm not an Italia fan, I just liked the hat.



1781102009625.png
 
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What ever happened to Czechia? They used to have so many good players. Now they are very bland just like my own Sweden. I remember names such as Kollar, Nedved, Baros, Grygera, Pobrovsky, Cech, Galasek, Smicer, Rosicky, Ujfalusi, Berger, Jankulovski etc.
 
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Eye of Ra said:
What ever happened to Czechia? They used to have so many good players. Now they are very bland just like my own Sweden. I remember names such as Kollar, Nedved, Baros, Grygera, Pobrovsky, Cech, Galasek, Smicer, Rosicky, Ujfalusi, Berger, Jankulovski etc.
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In many ways it's similar to hockey. You had players who were born under the restrictive communist system that on the one hand kept them from being able to travel abroad, building up the tension and drive to prove themselves, and on the other made it so that growing up, sport was one of the few real options for self-realisation. After the revolution, the classic sports of football and hockey suddenly had to compete with all kinds of other activities, culture and general life pursuits, as well as with the ability to just slack off and enjoy the mind-numbing fruits of capitalism.

So there was a natural decline as that first generation retired, and now they're having to build back up again, all the while facing increased competition from newer nations with newfound drive, and just generally better ability from nations that did not used to be as competitive. Also globally. I think we're starting to see some improvement again, but it is slow, and halting. Players with promise go abroad and never really break through and come back a few years later to rejoin the Czech league. We have one unicorn in Schick but he's injured half the time. And so on.
 
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Eye of Ra said:
What ever happened to Czechia? They used to have so many good players. Now they are very bland just like my own Sweden. I remember names such as Kollar, Nedved, Baros, Grygera, Pobrovsky, Cech, Galasek, Smicer, Rosicky, Ujfalusi, Berger, Jankulovski etc.
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Because countries like Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia had centrally planned youth development programs. The state itself played a heavy part in youth development and the state had focus on how players should play. The coaches also had to work within and set those criteria themselves.

They don’t and can’t put the same resources into football now. The prize money from European competitions also doesn’t flow to fragmented former communist states either by design or happenstance. Money has taken over the sport and they don’t have it.

For some reason none of this applied to Croatia but I’m not capable of explaining why. That being said their next generation appears to have nothing comparable to the last one.
 
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Also you can´t play on the streets anymore which was a staple of childhood when my generation was growing up in the Eastern block. My street which was literally 30 houses gave a number one in women´s tennis, 2 second division football players and a second division handball player, the only thing in common is we used to play football in the street all day long. Now with all the traffic and parked cars and Playstation you don´t see that anymore.
 
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Live in the Now said:
For some reason none of this applied to Croatia but I’m not capable of explaining why. That being said their next generation appears to have nothing comparable to the last one.
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I mean a lot of what I said applies to Croatia as well, the result was just delayed because of their... prolonged break-up. There there's also the added factor of a lot more families fleeing the conflict to western Europe and taking advantage of training in places like Austria and Switzerland. As you say, they are now also seeing a bit of decline so we'll see whether they're better able to keep up the continuity of talent
 
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maclean said:
Apparently the Korean team has been in Utah getting acclimatised to altitude since mid-May. Also interesting that this is their 11th straight World Cup (only Brazil, Germany, Argentina and Spain have a longer streak)
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And the biggest success for South Korea was 2002 World Cup where they reached semifinals featuring players such as Park Ji-Sung and Lee Young-Pyo.

South Koreans in Seoul back in 2002 watching the Bronze game beetween South Korea and Turkey:


777f859d-7ce5-463b-986c-4ce4e381b48b.jpg


That has to be 100 000 people. Look on the left side streets too, all the way back.
 
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