K-Sports highlights with Jason Lee

Time for the latest in the world of K-sports, from wonderful news for Korea's national football team and fans alike, to baseball updates we are joined by our sportscaster Jason Lee in the studio who will bring us all the highlights. Hello Jason!

Q1. The biggest Korean sports news over the past week has obviously been Korea qualifying for next year's World Cup in North America tell us about Korea's two wins!

Yes, Korea beat Iraq 2-0 last weekend and then defeated Kuwait 4-0 Tuesday night in Seoul the win in Iraq was actually all Korea needed to qualify so that means Korea does indeed qualify for their 11th straight World Cup Championship dating back to 1986 in Mexico.

The only countries to have played in more consecutive World Cups are: Brazil, Germany, Italy, Spain and Argentina and what do those countries have in common? Each have won the World Cup actually other than Spain, each of those countries have won the World Cup at LEAST 3 times!

Q2. Because Korea qualified with last week's win in Iraq, coach Hong Myung-Bo used Tuesday's game against Kuwait to play some of his younger or less experienced players who stood out for you in that game?

Yes, I thought the best player for Korea was clearly Lee Kang-In he was clearly a different player with the ball and his ability to make plays but of course we already know about him.

In terms of younger players that hadn't seen as much attention for the national team, I thought Jeon Jin-Woo of Jeonbuk stood out down the right wing. He played as a sub against Iraq and then started against Kuwait.

I think you could really see him look a lot more comfortable in the latter game although he did contribute a nice assist in the game against Iraq as well.

Another player that caught my attention was Bae Jun-Ho of Stoke City he's only 21 years old, but his passing ability is amazing.

He was playing in just his 7th and 8th national team game while Jeon Jin-Woo was making his 1st and 2nd appearances with the senior squad.

Q3. There's basically a year left now before the World Cup next summer, so what's next for Korea's national team between now and then?

Korea will actually host the E-1 Football Championship for the East Asian Football Federation next month in Yongin.

The 4 country tournament will feature: Korea, China, Japan and Hong Kong and will take place from the 7th to the 15th.

This is the 10th iteration of the event and typically Korea hasn't fielded their A-team for this event, but head coach Hong Myung-Bo is planning to use this as the early stages of preparation for the World Cup so I think we can expect to see a lot of Korea's top young players perhaps similar to what we saw against Kuwait.

Korea also has a trip planned to North America where they will play both the USA and Mexico in a pair of friendlies against 2 of the 3 hosts for next year's tournament.

I think this should be a good feeler for a pair of teams they could be grouped with and also I like the idea of getting a feel for the field conditions ahead of the tournament next summer.

Q4. Let's switch to baseball as I heard some legendary Major League Baseball players have visited Korea for a good reason?

Yeah both Hall of Famer, Adrian Beltre and World Series MVP Cole Hamels are in Korea right now to offer some advice to the SSG Landers Futures' League players.

Now you might wonder: "Why are they here helping out a Future's League team", which of course is the minor leagues for the KBO.

Well the answer is: Choo Shin-Soo, the former Major Leaguer and KBO All Star for SSG is now in charge of the SSG Futures' League team.

So he's reached out to a pair of former teammates as both Beltre and Hamels were teammates of Choo's when he played for the Texas Rangers.

So Lucky for the SSG youngsters that they have an opportunity to learn from some of the best and perhaps more importantly find inspiration from some of the stories I'm sure they'll share.

Q5. Choo Shin-Soo is a Legendary Korean baseball player who is coaching the SSG Lander's Future's team Another Korean baseball legend is Lee Seung-Yuop who is no longer coaching for Doosan ?

That's right Lee Seung-Yuop had been the Doosan Bears' manager for the past 2 seasons plus.

He recently announced that he would be stepping down as manager as his team has clearly under-performed.

Doosan is currently in 9th place and have frankly looked awful this season although they did make the post season in each of Lee Seung-Yup's first 2 seasons as manager.

It was telling that something might happen as fans had been more vocal about the teams performance as there had audibly been more booing and negative noises at Jamsil stadium as of late especially directed at Lee Seung-Yuop, which is kind of sad because he's such a big legend in the KBO.

He still holds the single season home run record with 56 and was ranked 4th on the KBO's all time greatest players list when they ranked the league top 40 players a few years ago for the league's 40th anniversary season.

Q6. And one more KBO note, there's going to be a big showdown of the current top 2 teams in the league this weekend as the LG Twins visit the Hanwha Eagles in Daejeon that should be a Big Series!

Yes, the top team teams clash LG, the champs from 2 years ago and Hanwha the league's perennial doormats that have turned things around this season.

Thank you very much Jason for all the updates in the world of K-sports, have a wonderful weekend.

Thank you Bella as always, have a great weekend and see you next week.