Mexico, Korea eye World Cup knockout berths

Mexico and South Korea will aim to punch their ticket to the World Cup knockout rounds on Thursday when they meet in Guadalajara knowing a win would guarantee a last 32 berth.

The Group A rivals head into the fixture at the Estadio Akron fresh from respective victories over South Africa and the Czech Republic in their opening games last week.

The expanded 48-team format for this year’s World Cup — and the fact that the eight best-ranked third-placed teams will advance from the group stage — means that a win for either Mexico or South Korea would see them advance.

Co-hosts Mexico eased past a poor South Africa in their opening game last week but are bracing for a significantly tougher test against a South Korean side studded with quality.

“We have to be very wary of the opponents’ attacking transitions,” Mexico coach Javier Aguirre said.

“When we are attacking, we can’t let our guard down; if there are two Koreans up front, there need to be three Mexicans.”

The build-up to Thursday’s game has seen shrouded with intrigue, with a mystery drone spotted over South Korea’s training ground on Tuesday.

Yonhap news agency reported that a South Korea team security officer spotted the device, and a Mexican military drone-interdiction specialist stationed at the training camp brought it down by emitting radio signals.

Two men who were suspected to be the drone operators retrieved the crashed device and fled the scene in an incident which South Korea coach Hong Myung-bo described as “unfortunate” but insisted “did not impact us significantly.”

Hostile atmosphere

Hong meanwhile is preparing his team for an intimidating atmosphere against the hosts on Thursday.

“We fully understand that it’s going to be a match with the home team, and we know that that’s going to give benefits to the home team,” Hong said.

“But my players have experienced such matches before, so it will be different tomorrow, and we need to control the rhythm and the flow of the match.”

In other games on Thursday, Switzerland will look to bounce back from their disappointing opening Group B draw with Qatar when they take on Bosnia-Herzegovina, while co-hosts Canada face the Qataris in Vancouver.

Bosnia coach Sergej Barbarez is eyeing another upset, urging his team to summon the spirit of their qualifying campaign, when they knocked out Italy during the playoffs.

Barbarez brushed off suggestions that Switzerland would expect to beat a team ranked 44 places below them by FIFA.

“Everyone has the right to their own opinion and show their confidence,” the coach said.

“When we were playing against Italy in the playoffs, we had a similar sort of sentiment publicly, but we stayed focused on ourselves,” he added.

Thursday’s games kick off the second round of group fixtures.

On Wednesday, England lit up the tournament with a roller coaster 4-2 win over Croatia in Group L which included two goals from captain Harry Kane and one from Real Madrid star Jude Bellingham.

But while England got off the mark in style, there was disappointment for Portugal, who were held to a surprise 1-1 draw by the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The result once again renewed scrutiny of Portugal coach Roberto Martinez’s support for Cristiano Ronaldo, the 41-year-old icon who is playing in his sixth World Cup.

The veteran striker gave an ineffective performance, managing just 25 touches in the whole match, but Martinez defended the decision not to replace him.

“It makes no sense to take off the best goal scorer in world football in a game that you need goals,” Martinez said.

Ronaldo has now failed to score in 10 consecutive matches in major tournaments and his country’s press turned against him on Thursday.

Sports newspaper A Bola said that Ronaldo appeared “crushed by the pressure” and had become “himself a problem”, while Publico said the team “remains hostage to its faith in Ronaldo”.