South Korea — 2026 World Cup Squad

Start at the back, because that is where this South Korea side starts too. Kim Min-jae is the rare centre-half who turns defending into a weapon: 92-rated, Bayern-hardened, quick enough to clean up whatever the high line leaves behind. Build around a man like that and the rest of the structure makes sense. Hwang In-beom sets the tempo in front of him with the unhurried Feyenoord passing that lets Korea catch their breath, and Lee Jae-sung's Mainz legwork does the unglamorous stitching between the lines.

The flair lives further up. Lee Kang-in is the one trusted to unpick a low block, his PSG schooling obvious in the tight half-spaces and over a dead ball, while Hwang Hee-chan brings the straight-line menace honed at Wolves, forever threatening the channel behind a back four.

And then Son Heung-min, who needs no setting up. He is at LAFC now rather than grinding through Premier League winters, but the captain remains the gravitational centre of everything Korea try, almost certainly at his last World Cup. Spring him into space in transition and this becomes a tie nobody fancied drawing.