South Korea U-20 football team striker Lee Young-jun (Gimcheon Sangmu) has revealed his ambitions and role models for the remainder of the tournament.
Kim Eun-joong’s side are set to face Nigeria in the quarter-finals of the FIFA U-20 World Cup after beating hosts Argentina at the Santiago del Estero Stadium in Argentina at 2.30am on Friday.
South Korea striker Lee Young-joon was interviewed ahead of the game and expressed his confidence in the match.토토사이트
“Nigeria is a really good team. I expect it to be a difficult match. Some people may think we are underdogs, but I think we can step up to a bigger stage based on what we have done so far. If we do what we’ve been doing, we can do it,” he said, adding that the team is not only looking beyond the quarter-finals.
Lee has impressed with his decisiveness and versatility at the U-20 World Cup, opening the scoring in South Korea’s 2-1 group stage victory over favourites France on 23 March and then scoring a stunning volley against Ecuador in the round of 16 to send his side through to the quarter-finals.
On his goal in the Round of 16, he said: “When you get a chance like that, you can’t go in thinking it’s going in, that’s not what I was trying to do. I grabbed it and hit it with tempo and scored,” he recalled.
In addition to his goals, Lee has also shown his strength in playing and linking up with his height and physicality, and is being tipped as the next great goal scorer for the Korean national team.
“I like Kane,” he said of his role models. His shooting is his strength, but he’s a good all-round player. I look up to him as a role model.” In terms of his own strengths, he said, “I have an advantage in height and physicality. My strengths are in the header competition and post play.”
In addition to his strengths and role models, Lee vowed to improve, saying, “I think I need to work on the technical aspects of linking up with my teammates, my quickness, and my ability to shoot in front of the net.” He added that he is always thinking about what needs to be improved.
Meanwhile, when asked about the Korean team’s quarter-final performance at the tournament, Lee also revealed that they are aiming higher.
“Every country came to the tournament with the goal of winning,” he said. We have been practising to perform well since the first call-up. We came here to perform at the world championships, and of course, we believed in our coach, we believed in ourselves, we believed that we could come this far, and we believed that we could go further,” he said, adding that he was not satisfied with the quarter-finals and would challenge for the title.