Arsenal striker Park Chu-young has managed to get back into the South Korean national team after being recalled by manager Hong Myung-bo for the upcoming match against Greece. This will be one of the final preparations for South Korea ahead of the World Cup 2014.
The future of Park Chu-young at international level has been highly speculated after the 28-year-old has failed to make a first-team appearance for Arsenal in a long time. However, he recently made the move to Championship outfit Watford on a season-long loan deal.
Arsenal striker Park Chu-young has managed to get back into the South Korean national team after being recalled by manager Hong Myung-bo for the upcoming match against Greece. This will be one of the final preparations for South Korea ahead of the World Cup 2014.
The future of Park Chu-young at international level has been highly speculated after the 28-year-old has failed to make a first-team appearance for Arsenal in a long time. However, he recently made the move to Championship outfit Watford on a season-long loan deal.
After playing regularly for the second-tier outfit, he has managed to catch the attention of his national team manager. After qualifying for the World Cup finals, South Korea have managed to appear in this competition for the eighth consecutive time. However, recent defeats in friendly matches against Mexico and United States has increased the pressure on manager Hong Myung-bo. The nation has a great chance to feature in the knockout stages of the competition after being paired alongside Russia, Belgium, and Algeria.
While Belgium are expected to top the group quite easily, the final qualification spot will be a straight fight between Russia and Algeria. A friendly against Tunisia is the final match before South Korea take on Russia in their opening World Cup match.
“I agonised over this decision. I spoke to him on the phone a few times. Though he’s not playing at the moment, I figured he is still in decent form, and it wouldn’t be a problem to have him on our time,” Hong told reporters on Wednesday about the reason behind selecting the 28-year-old Arsenal man, whose contract is up at the end of the season. It is widely believed that he will leave the club in the summer with likely destinations being in Germany or Netherlands.