<Reporter Kim Young-seong>
Our national team has been fighting hard due to poor cross accuracy even after diligent side attacks.
As Portugal's weak point is their flank defense, they need to improve the accuracy of their crosses to win.
This is reporter Lee Seong-hoon's report.
<Reporter Seonghoon Lee>
Bentuho is the team that tried the hardest cross in this competition.
With 65 crosses in both matches, including a whopping 46 crosses against Ghana, he is the overwhelming number one with 32.5 per game.
In addition, when the field was divided into 3 parts, the time with the ball in the 1/3 zone on the opponent's side reached 35% of the game time, playing aggressive enough to rank second.
But it wasn't efficient.
The cross success rate was only 29%, so most of the crosses were caught in the opponent's defense or missed.
So we need to reflect on the power of the cross that we showed in the second half of the match against Ghana.
We need to reproduce the scene where Lee Kang-in and Kim Jin-su's so-called 'courier cross' led to Cho Kyu-sung's header goal.
A cross can be a surefire weapon as Portugal frequently expose loopholes in the space behind the flanks.
In Bentuho, Na Sang-ho and Kim Moon-hwan actively move the right flank attack ratio to 45% of the total attack, while Son Heung-min's condition is poor, the left flank attack ratio is 32%, which is 31st out of 32 teams.
This is why we need to increase the utilization of Lee Kang-in, the 'master of the left foot'.
[Cha Du-ri/FIFA Technical Research Fellow: I think the aspect is important.
I think it's very important to create chances there by overlapping or using numbers.]
As the importance of side attacks has increased, we need to increase the sophistication of crosses to open the way to the round of 16.
(Video editing: Kijeong Woo)