Turkey will play their first match of the new year with a home friendly against Republic of Korea at today in Trabzon./Sport News
The match whose kick-off time will be at 20.00 with Turkish local time, will take place at Hüseyin Avni Aker Stadium. The match will be officated byUkrainian match official Sergii Boiko. Oleg Pluzhnyk and Sergii Bekker will be the assistant referees, while Turkish Hüseyin Göçek has been appointed as the fourth official of the game.
This friendly will be the 7th meeting between the two sides in their history. In the past four friendlies and two competitive matches, Turkey recorded four wins, one draw and one defeat out of their six past outings against their Asian rivals. One of the most memorable moments of the past meetings, were from the 2002 FIFA World Cup where the two sides made exceptional gestures of fair play. Turkey Head Coach Guus Hiddink was then in charge of the Korean team.
Turkey last faced Republic of Korea in June 2004 when they played two friendly matches. Turkey had won the first game 1-0 before losing the second 2-1.
Ranked 39th in the FIFA standings, Republic of Korea advanced into the Round of 16 at last summer’s 2010 FIFA World Cup, then were eliminated from the competition after a 2-1 defeat by Uruguay.
Turkey squad consists of the players listed at the below:
Volkan Demirel, Fehmi Mert Günok, Gökhan Gönül, Emre Belözoğlu (Fenerbahçe), Tolga Zengin, Serkan Balcı, Selçuk İnan, Engin Baytar, Umut Bulut, Burak Yılmaz (Trabzonspor), Servet Çetin, Hakan Kadir Balta, Sabri Sarıoğlu, Yekta Kurtuluş, Kazım Kazım (Galatasaray), İsmail Köybaşı (Beşiktaş), Gökhan Süzen (Büyükşehir Belediyespor), Fehmi Emre Güngör (Gaziantepspor), Yiğit İncedemir (Manisaspor), Serdar Kesimal (Kayserispor), Mehmet Ekici (1.FC Nürnberg), Hamit Altıntop (Bayern Münih), Tunay Torun (Hamburg).
Republic of Korea squad consists of the players listed at the below:
Jung Sung-Ryong, Hwang Jae-Won, Lee Yong-Rae (Suwon Samsung), Kim Jin-Hyeon, Kim Bo-Kyung (Cerezo Osaka), Lee Jung-Soo (Al Sadd), Hong Jeong-Ho (Jeju United), Lee Sang-Duk (Daegu FC), Cha Du-Ri, Ki Sung-Yueng (Celtic), Hong Chul (Seongnam Ilhwa), Yun Suk-Young, Ji Dong-Won (Chunnam Dragons), Choi Hyo-Jin (Sangmu), Lee Chung-Yong (Bolton), Yoon Bitgaram (Gyeongnam FC), Choi Sung-Kuk (Sangju Sangmu), Koo Ja-Cheol (VfL Wolfsburg), Son Heung-Min (Hamburg SV), Park Chu-Young (AS Monaco), Nam Tae-Hee (Valenciennes FC), Kim Shin-Wook (Ulsan Hyundai).
