Jun 18, 2026 · 1 hr 4 min · 11 segments
Erfan, Arya, and Kenta go through the AFC teams' perforamances in the first matchday of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The Asian Football Podcast is a podcast dedicated to covering all aspects of football…
Kenta HagiwaraHostArya NourizadehHost
Erfan HoseinyHost
In Group A, we have South Korea, who started the World Cup campaign against Czechia.
They initially went behind after a header by Czechia, but then they were able to come back, thanks to both from Hwang In-Biom and Hyun Gi-ho.
I think what stood out in this game for me was Hong Min-sun's horrible performance, and I'm sure you guys can agree with me here.
Let's talk about the positives, because I think everyone can agree that they did deserve this win, and they played very well.
Hwang Inbum, you know, I think we were talking about him coming into this World Cup and the question of coming off of an injury, the expectation of how long can he play in the match? You know, there's reports circulating that he was expected to be pulled out 60 minutes into the match and he refused to be taken off after Czechia won went ahead around that 60 million mark and obviously he's the catalyst for for this turnaround the comeback scores the equalizer and assists the winner so um what a performance obviously like again we highlighted how important hwang is for this midfield for south korea how crucial he is on in in both assets in both sides of the ball uh and he kind of showed that
his qualities there late in this match so uh and also on on the topic of son i i i still thought he had a solid match i you know it wasn't dreadful his finishing wasn't great uh it's something we've seen at lafc but i thought the kind of the interchange play and uh the hold up play and kind of everything else off the ball and his pressing was still good where like he he's a player where Even when he's not in form, the stuff that he does off the ball, the intangibles, it helps make his performance a bit more bearable, I think, to a degree.
He's not one of those superstars that's not going to press aggressively off the ball and make plays that not every superstar is going to make.
Sonny certainly is a team player by that standpoint, and I think he had... parts of this game that still i would consider redeemable but you know we i questioned from the start and i think we had this topic of if he's even a starter at this point we'll see what happens in the second match day because i think there is a world where you don't start sunny and he thrives more as a guy coming off the bench and more limited minute capacity
I'm really glad Korea won because Czechia were playing some type of haram ball, man.
In Group A, we have South Korea, who started the World Cup campaign against Czechia.
They initially went behind after a header by Czechia, but then they were able to come back, thanks to both from Hwang In-Biom and Hyun Gi-ho.
I think what stood out in this game for me was Hong Min-sun's horrible performance, and I'm sure you guys can agree with me here.
Let's talk about the positives, because I think everyone can agree that they did deserve this win, and they played very well.
Hwang Inbum, you know, I think we were talking about him coming into this World Cup and the question of coming off of an injury, the expectation of how long can he play in the match? You know, there's reports circulating that he was expected to be pulled out 60 minutes into the match and he refused to be taken off after Czechia won went ahead around that 60 million mark and obviously he's the catalyst for for this turnaround the comeback scores the equalizer and assists the winner so um what a performance obviously like again we highlighted how important hwang is for this midfield for south korea how crucial he is on in in both assets in both sides of the ball uh and he kind of showed that
his qualities there late in this match so uh and also on on the topic of son i i i still thought he had a solid match i you know it wasn't dreadful his finishing wasn't great uh it's something we've seen at lafc but i thought the kind of the interchange play and uh the hold up play and kind of everything else off the ball and his pressing was still good where like he he's a player where Even when he's not in form, the stuff that he does off the ball, the intangibles, it helps make his performance a bit more bearable, I think, to a degree.
He's not one of those superstars that's not going to press aggressively off the ball and make plays that not every superstar is going to make.
Sonny certainly is a team player by that standpoint, and I think he had... parts of this game that still i would consider redeemable but you know we i questioned from the start and i think we had this topic of if he's even a starter at this point we'll see what happens in the second match day because i think there is a world where you don't start sunny and he thrives more as a guy coming off the bench and more limited minute capacity
I'm really glad Korea won because Czechia were playing some type of haram ball, man.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
