South Korea’s Bae Jun-ho is unlikely to feature in Thursday’s opening FIFA World Cup match against the Czech Republic in Guadalajara as the midfielder continues to recover from an ankle injury sustained during a 5-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago 10 days ago.
The 22-year-old Stoke City playmaker missed his country’s 1-0 win over El Salvador on Thursday and has been training on his own in an increasingly unlikely bid to be ready for South Korea’s opening Group A match against Miroslav Koubek’s side.
Bae is one of the youngest players in coach Hong Myung-bo’s squad and is expected to add a touch of youthful vigor to a line-up that worked through Asia’s preliminaries before securing his spot at an 11th consecutive World Cup.
The Koreans reached the last 16 in 2022, with Hwang Hee-chan scoring the injury-time winner against Portugal to take his team to the knockout rounds, and the Wolverhampton Wanderers forward will be hoping to repeat his performances at the upcoming tournament.
“If I can play like that again, it will be great for myself and for our team,” said Hwang, who will be appearing in his third World Cup. “I am working hard for such a moment.
“Every match is important, but especially the first match.” The Czechs head into the World Cup on a wave of confidence after six wins in qualifying and friendlies following a crisis late last year when they lost to the Faroe Islands.
That result marked the low point of a then faltering qualifying season and led to the appointment of 74-year-old Koubek, who guided the Czechs through the play-offs to their first World Cup appearance since 2006.
The Czechs will look to impose their physicality on the South Koreans, possibly looking for the two-metre tall Slavia Prague striker Tomas Chory, who headed in a goal in the 3-1 draw against Guatemala on June 6.
Organizational discipline will play an important role and is something Koubek believes needs to be improved after some miscommunication during the 3-1 win over Guatemala.
“Some defensive solutions were not completely decisive, that’s true,” Koubek told reporters after the match. «We should have been more assertive in the matches. There were some mistakes.»
The Czechs will hope Patrik Schick’s goal against Guatemala means the Bayer Leverkusen striker and joint top scorer at Euro 2020 has found form, while Hoffenheim striker Adam Hlozek offers another experienced option up front.
Koubek will also lean on West Ham midfielder Tomas Soucek and 35-year-old Vladimir Darida – who earned a recall to the national team after impressing for Hradec Kralove in the Czech top flight this season – to provide experience and stability.
Published on June 10, 2026
