6 hours Ago By [email protected](KoreaTimes)
Yang Hyun-Jun, football player at Celtic, celebrates after scoring his sides fifth goal in a Scottish Premiership football match between St Mirren and Glaswo Celtic, at the SMISA Stadium in Paisley, Scotland, U.K., March 1.
AP-Yonhap In the midst of a hot streak, Celtic FC winger Yang Hyun-jun was named to the Korean squad Monday ahead of two upcoming World Cup qualifying matches at home. Head coach Hong Myung-bo unveiled his 28-man team at the Korea Football Association (KFA) House, with Korea set to host Oman on March 20 at Goyang Stadium in Goyang, about 20 kilometers northwest of Seoul, and Jordan on March 25 at Suwon World Cup Stadium in Suwon, some 30 kilometers south of the capital city. They will be the seventh and eighth matches for Korea in the third round of the Asian qualification for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Korea are leading Group B with 14 points from four wins and two draws. The top two countries from each of the three groups will punch their tickets to the World Cup, and Korea, with a five-point lead over Jordan with four matches to go, could secure their World Cup berth during the upcoming home stand. Yang, 22, has been the hottest Korean player in Europe for the past month, with four goals and five assists in seven matches in all competitions.
He has earned three caps so far, and his last international appearance came during the Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup in February 2024. Yang Min-hyeok, the 18-year-old attacker for Queens Park Rangers (QPR), also earned the call-up Monday. He was on the squad for World Cup qualifiers last September but did not make an appearance then.
Yang signed for Tottenham Hotspur last summer but was loaned to QPR in the second-tier English league in January before playing in any match for Spurs. The two Yangs — unrelated — are joined by some of the team's usual mainstays, including longtime captain Son Heung-min (Tottenham), midfielder Lee Kang-in (Paris Saint-Germain) and defender Kim Min-jae (Bayern Munich). Another veteran, Feyenoord midfielder Hwang In-beom, made the team despite having missed about a month of action for his Dutch club with an unspecified injury.
Kim Dong-heon and Cho Hyun-taek, the respective goalkeeper and defender for the K League 1 side Gimcheon Sangmu FC, both earned their first national team call-ups. Daejeon Hana Citizen FC striker Joo Min-kyu, currently leading the K League 1 with four goals after four matches, is one of three forwards on the team. The squad features nine players born in the 2000s.
The Taegeuk Warriors have played at every World Cup since 1986. (Yonhap).
