[Anchor]
In a little while, our national soccer and baseball teams will play one game after another.
The national soccer team will play its fifth World Cup qualifying match against Kuwait, and the national baseball team will play its second Premier 12 (Twelve) match against Cuba.
I'll connect with a reporter and give a detailed view of the game.
Reporter Yang Si-chang, the soccer World Cup qualifying round starts at 11 p.m., right?
[Reporter]
Yes, it's Hong Myung-bo's 3rd World Cup qualifying match against Kuwait and the 5th game.
As you said, kick-off is at 11 p.m.
First of all, Korea is ahead in objective power.
He has 12 wins, 4 draws and 8 losses in his career, but since losing the Asian Cup in 2000, he has never lost a victory with 7 wins and 1 draw.
Unlike Hong Myung-bo, who is cruising with three wins and one draw in this World Cup qualifying round, Kuwait has not won a single match in four qualifying matches.
However, the draw with Jordan and Iraq, which are considered tricky opponents, is something we need to be careful about.
If our country wins today's game, it will win four games in a row, following Oman last September and Jordan and Iraq in October.
Also, if we win the match against Palestine on the 19th, it would be safe to say that we will cross the 7th ridge of our 11th consecutive World Cup finals.
Above all, today's game is Captain Son Heung-min's return to the national team.
Son Heung-min will wear the national flag for the first time in a long time, and if he scores in today's game, he will reach the second place with the most goals in the A-match with former coach Hwang Sun-hong with 50 goals.
However, it remains to be seen how long the playing time will be guaranteed.
In order to prevent the recurrence of injuries, Tottenham's coach Postecoglou also placed a limit on playing time.
Coach Hong Myung-bo told a local press conference yesterday that he would decide the playing time considering the overall situation.
They are also the main players of the national team, and the fact that Lee Kang-in, Lee Jae-sung and Hwang In-beom scored goals side by side before joining the national team is another factor that makes us look forward to today's game.
[Anchor]
Yes, the baseball team also plays an important match before soccer, right?
[Reporter]
Yes, this is the second match of Premier 12.
There are only about 30 minutes left until the game starts.
Today, we're going to play against Cuba, a strong team.
Today's game became even more important as we lost one game against Taiwan, the first game we had to catch.
Premier 12 is a national competition with 12 countries ranked in the world baseball.
It is a format in which six teams face each other once in an opening round, and the top two teams advance to the super round.
Our first goal of the national baseball team is to advance to the super round, but a dark cloud hung over us when we lost to Taiwan in the first game.
It is still too early to count the number of cases, but it may be virtually difficult to secure second place if the team loses the match against Cuba.
The good thing is that just before this tournament, we played two warm-up matches against Cuba in Korea and won them all.
Kwak Bin, who head coach Ryu Joong-il started today, also blocked Cuba's batters with one hit and no runs in two innings in the warm-up match.
It is also important that must-win pitchers such as Jung Hae-young, Kim Taek-yeon, and Park Young-hyun accumulated strength in the first game.
As there were criticisms that the timing of the replacement of pitchers was late in the first game, manager Ryu is expected to go all out in this game to mobilize all the ballpoint pens.
Cuba was also put on alert when it lost its first game to the Dominican Republic.
The fact that ace Moello, who tried to set up against Japan, the most demanding opponent, was pulled up and started today's game is also read as a will to catch the game against us.
As it is an all-out match, the game may be decided in defensive concentration.
The fielders should also be more careful of their mistakes.
As soon as the game is over, I'll tell you in the news that follows.
So far, in the sports department, YTN Yang Si-chang.
Video Edit: Oh HWONSEULGI
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