On June 7 of 2017, South Korea faced off with Iraq in a friendly match that resulted with neither national sides being able to score a single goal which is a fairly underwhelming and slightly surprising result if anyone takes into consideration the fact that the Korean squad is currently positioned at the 43rd spot in the FIFA rankings while Iraq is in the 120th position.
The FIFA rankings has traditionally been critiqued for the way that it evaluates national teams and results but nonetheless it’s just a system that evaluates the performances from squads at the international stage whether or not how accurate it actually is, is up for debate.
When the friendly match between South Korea and Iraq was over, the 62 year old German tactician revealed details concerning some of his decisions that were made prior and during the actual match as UliStielike said:
“I ordered the players to stick to the back three because we might have a situation to use the formation in the future. In the first half, the players weren’t aggressive because of the new formation and also the hot weather. In the second half, they played with a familiar formation, so our game got better.” Continue reading “South Korea´s UliStielike talks about his decisions against Iraq”