“Taiwan needs to be careful going forward.”
The South Korean baseball team has returned home with gold. After defeating Chinese Taipei on Sunday to win their fourth consecutive Asian Games gold medal despite being the weakest team in history, the team returned home the next day.
Coach Ryu Jung-il hugged his granddaughter as soon as he left the arrival hall, then posed for a photo with the team again. He was then interviewed on his return.
Liu said, “The players suffered too much. They won the gold medal so hard. I have a lump in my throat right now,” he said with a smile, adding, “There was an age limit and the players were a little weak. The fans were worried about whether they would be able to win the gold medal, but the players worked so hard that they were able to win it,” he said with a smile.
When asked to pick the MVP of the tournament, he said, “I would like to pick Kim Hye-sung and Moon Dong-joo.” “Kim Hye-sung did a good job in the qualifiers, and Moon Dong-joo played the role of ace in place of Kwak Bin. I personally think that Moon Dong-joo will become a higher-level pitcher after this tournament,” he said, expressing his expectations for Moon Dong-joo.
When asked what he thought when the ball was hit in front of the second baseman in the bottom of the ninth inning with runners on first and second and a 2-0 lead in the final against Chinese Taipei, Ryu praised Kim Hye-sung, saying, “She did a very good job, to the point where she is said to be the best infielder in the KBO.”
When asked to name the most decisive moment of the tournament, he pointed to the final scene in the bottom of the ninth inning with runners on first and second base. “They were on first and second base, so if something big came out, it could have turned the tide,” he said. Go Woo-seok’s pitching and Kim Hye-sung’s defense were outstanding.
He hopes that the tournament will help change the generation of Korean baseball. “The national team experienced a generation change because there was an age limit for the tournament. I think they will do better in the next tournament when they go to the international stage,” he said.
But you shouldn’t relax. The quality of the other countries is high. “Japan is made up of social baseball players, but they have good 스포츠토토 fundamentals,” Liu said, “and Taiwan, in particular, has improved more than 10 years ago and 7 years ago in all aspects of pitching, defense, and hitting. We have to be careful in the future.”
He urged Korea to prepare from now on. “If you look at the KBO League right now, there are a lot of fielding errors, and there are a lot of misses at the plate. We need to reduce them,” he said, adding, “The pitchers are good. We need to prepare from now on,” he said.