South Korea

Hong Myung-bo's South Korea are similar to his Ulsan HD sides in that both will frequently transition between back three and back four possession shapes in one match. The theory makes sense for this group of Korean players - Son Heung-min is no longer the ball-carrying dynamo he once was, and there is plenty of technical proficiency in the squad, so the idea is to overload the wide areas by pushing the wingbacks and lateral CBs forward from a base 3-4-3, with one of the holding midfielders dropping back to cover alongside central CB Kim Min-jae. The resultant shape is effectively a 4-2-4 or 2-4-4 to pull defenses laterally, reducing Son's off-ball workload and allowing him to play the role of target man.

In practice, the implementation of these ideas has been limited by poor execution and availability. Hwang In-beom is by far the most important part of this tactical approach but is recovering from an ankle injury. The silver lining for Hong is that tournament expectations are tempered (it's hard to do worse than Jürgen Klinsmann did in Qatar). On the other hand, it's a favourable group draw, and Hong has already suffered media embarrassment thanks to an interview that surfaced with assistant coach João Aroso where it was implied that Aroso was in fact hired to take charge of tactics, with legendary ex-player Hong just a figurehead. Not great optics, but a good tournament performance can cure all ills.