Ko Young-jun (Pohang Steelers), who made the final roster for the Asian Games, was looking forward to a good performance despite an unsavory incident.
Lee Ho-jae’s theater goal gave Pohang a 2-1 victory over Jeonbuk Hyundai in the 24th round of the Hana OneQ K League 2023 at the Pohang Steelyard on Nov. 21.
With the win, Pohang picked up three more points to remain in second place (11 wins, 9 draws, 4 losses, 42 points) and maintain the gap on leaders Ulsan (18 wins, 2 draws, 4 losses, 56 points).
Ko Young-jun, who scored the winning goal against Jeonbuk last time out, started the game and looked to score. He came up short in the 34th minute when his shot from the front of the box hit the goalpost. Then, Han Chan-hee’s shot hit Kim Jung-hoon and went in for a consolation goal.
“When I was injured and came back, the coach jokingly said, ‘We’re 1-1 since you came back,’ and I think he was half joking and half serious, but I took it very seriously and sensitively, so I wanted to do something better, so I was frustrated that my body wasn’t as good as I thought, but I think I’m almost back on track today, so I’m personally proud and happy to beat Jeonbuk,” Ko said.
“I think I’m back to 8 to 90 percent compared to before I got injured,” said Ko Young-joon, whose performance has improved since returning from injury, “I still have physical strength. In fact, I tried to run without realizing it, even though my rat was about 65 minutes faster. I think I ran longer than I thought.”
During the two-week break, Ko will participate in training for the Korean Asian Games soccer team, led by Hwang Sun-hong.
“I wanted to be on the roster for the Asian Games, so I’m personally honored,” he said. “There are some bad things that happened, but I want to overcome them as a team and achieve good results.”
Ko Young-jun, who was consistently called upon by Hwang, spoke about the atmosphere within the squad, saying, “The manager, coaches, 토토사이트 and players are all communicating a lot. I’m not sure about the team atmosphere because we haven’t gotten together to do anything yet, but I think everyone is in the right frame of mind, so I don’t think there will be any problems with the team atmosphere.”
Go recently suffered an injury during a two-game series against China in June. At the time, there was some criticism of the team for playing a friendly against China with so many injuries.
“Honestly, when I got injured, it wasn’t out of malice on the part of the Chinese players, it was just something that couldn’t be helped, so I think it helped a lot to go to China and adapt to the environment a little bit and play with Chinese players,” he said.