Mexico, Korea eye World Cup knockout berths

LOS ANGELES: Mexico and South Korea will aim to punch their ticket to the World Cup knockout rounds on Thursday when they meet in Guadalajara knowing a win would guarantee a last 32 berth.
The Group A rivals head into the fixture at the Estadio Akron fresh from respective victories over South Africa and the Czech Republic in their opening games last week.
The expanded 48-team format for this year’s World Cup — and the fact that the eight best-ranked third-placed teams will advance from the group stage — means that a win for either Mexico or South Korea would see them advance.
Co-hosts Mexico eased past a poor South Africa in their opening game last week but are bracing for a significantly tougher test against a South Korean side studded with quality.
“We have to be very wary of the opponents’ attacking transitions,” Mexico coach Javier Aguirre said.
“When we are attacking, we can’t let our guard down; if there are two Koreans up front, there need to be three Mexicans.”
The build-up to Thursday’s game has seen shrouded with intrigue, with a mystery drone spotted over South Korea’s training ground on Tuesday.
Yonhap news agency reported that a South Korea team security officer spotted the device, and a Mexican military drone-interdiction specialist stationed at the training camp brought it down by emitting radio signals.
Two men who were suspected to be the drone operators retrieved the crashed device and fled the scene in an incident which South Korea coach Hong Myung-bo described as “unfortunate” but insisted “did not impact us significantly.”

- Hostile atmosphere -

Hong meanwhile is preparing his team for an intimidating atmosphere against the hosts on Thursday.
“We fully understand that it’s going to be a match with