Park Ji-Sung reckons that South Korea would be able to become the World Champions at some point of time in future.
Park said this in one of the BBC programmes a few days ago. This is a big statement made by the former South Korean skipper.
It’s true that South Korea is way ahead of the other Asian teams in terms of skill, but, they are still very much behind if compared to the teams from other parts of the world. Even in the ongoing FIFA World Cup, they couldn’t get through their group.
Park himself also admitted that South Korea can’t be compared to the teams from Europe at this point of time, but, according to him, the game has developed a lot in his country in the recent past. The high quality players are coming through the ranks quite frequently now and South Korea will be a really strong unit a few years down the line.
Speaking in that programme, Park said, “Well, I know that there is a big gap between us and the European nations as of now, but, it would be narrowed pretty quickly and I truly believe that we can lift the cup someday.”
What Park is saying might be right, but, the truth is that South Korea’s performance has actually deteriorated at the bigger stages in the last one decade. They had taken the football world by storm by making it to the round of 4 in the 2002 World Cup, but, in the next World Cup which had taken place in Germany, they got knocked out from the group stage.
Then, in South Africa, 4 years back, they made it to the pre quarter finals, but, couldn’t go ahead. And now in Brazil, they have again suffered an early exit. So, this, in a sense, contradicts the statement made by Park.