South Korea’s captain Son Heung-Min is feeling like a kid ahead of his fourth FIFA World Cup appearance. South Korea will begin their World Cup campaign against Czechia at Estadio Guadalajara on Thursday evening and the former Tottenham Hotspur star is looking forward to the clash with all the zest.
Heung-Min is South Korea’s most experienced campaigner with 144 appearances under his belt and there is no doubt that he is going to hold the key for his country.
“I’m very happy to be back on the World Cup pitch, which is something I dreamed of from a very young age,” said Son, in Wednesday’s prematch news conference for their Group A opener.
“Whether it’s my first World Cup or fourth World Cup, I feel like a young boy again. This is the stage of dreams.
“It’s not something that can be expressed in one word. Whether it’s the first, fourth or sixth World Cup, our mindset must be the same when we participate in the World Cup.
“I think during [the last World Cup in] Qatar, we showed a lot of strength but also had losses and failures. I think those are lessons that we have learned from going forward.
“Of course, we are a little bit more mature and experienced. There are some changes [in personnel] but our mindset on the world stage is the same.
“The atmosphere, right from the beginning now, is no problem at all. And whenever I see my teammates working so hard for the team, for Korea, sometimes I even have to calm them down.
“We’re very prepared and I hope that we will get a good result tomorrow because I’m sure they [his teammates] deserve it.”
The talisman forward said he wants to give his best and he is focused on taking one day at a time in training.
“When it comes to the importance of the first match, I don’t live for tomorrow,” he explained.
“Today is the most important day for me and I need to develop myself. Today I will be focused on training.
“Tomorrow, I can think about tomorrow. Tomorrow, we will do our best.
“We have three matches during the group stage and every match will be very important. We’re going to play for our lives [and] we will try to go beyond our capacity and capabilities.”
South Africa and Mexico are the other two teams, along with South Korea and Czechia, in Group A.
