Korea turns to unity amid language barriers and war cries in Jalandhar
South Korea’s national men’s hockey team, led by head coach Jungbin Lim and captain Yong Bok Kim, conducted a training session at Surjit Singh Hockey Stadium on Wednesday, October 28 as they prepared for the Asian Champions Trophy in Jalandhar following an opening-day defeat to Japan. The session offered a glimpse of the squad’s response to mounting questions about its future.
South Korea once disrupted the India–Pakistan dominance in Asian hockey by winning the Asian Games gold in Seoul in 1986 and have since added three more Asian Games gold medals. Their most notable achievement came at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 when they won silver, and they finished fourth at the 2002 and 2006 World Cups. By 2003 the team had risen to fourth in the FIH world rankings.
The contemporary picture is markedly different: South Korea have slipped to 20th in the world rankings, missed this year’s World Cup and finished fourth at the Asian Games in Nagoya. Their campaign at the Asian Champions Trophy in Jalandhar has also started poorly, with Japan edging them 3-2 on the opening day. Those results framed the urgency visible at the Surjit Singh Hockey Stadium training.
Head coach Jungbin Lim and captain Yong Bok Kim were central to an intense practice that combined demanding drills with clear team cohesion. Players moved through high-tempo exercises with a sense of urgency and camaraderie, and the warm-up run was punctuated by loud war cries that echoed around the stadium while Lim watched from the sidelines. The atmosphere suggested a focus on collective spirit as much as on individual preparation.
The session progressed into tactical work centred on breaking down a high press and advancing the ball forward. Lim communicated constantly in Korean during those drills, with his instructions audible as they bounced off the stadium walls. A handful of local reporters noticed the coach’s continuous direction during the tactical phase.
A local reporter asked questions in Punjabi while Lim replied in Korean, and Google Translate served as the mediator, converting questions and answers back and forth as the conversation flowed. The same process followed when captain Kim was speaking, and visiting journalists adjusted to the unusual exchange. Those interactions provided more than routine soundbites, revealing a squad attempting to rediscover its identity.
Lim is relatively new to the job and faces significant personnel changes since the team that featured at the 2025 Asia Cup. Dain Son, identified as their leading goalscorer in Rajgir, was absent from the current squad, while Hyeongjin Kim and Yoonho Kong have retired. Rebuilding a team while trying to preserve its competitive edge is rarely straightforward, and Lim appears to have a clear idea of where he wants to begin.
For him, the starting point is not tactics or results. It is unity.