South Korea’s World Cup team swapped shirts during training to confuse Swedish spies.
As reported by Business Insider, to confuse Swedish spies, South Korea’s World Cup team swapped jerseys.
A member of Sweden’s coaching staff, Lars Jacobsson, was caught attempting to spy on South Korea’s closed training session in Austria earlier this month. The spy had approached the training ground posing as a tourist.
He allegedly a used high performance telescope and video camera from a house near the camp.
In response, Taeguk Warriors coach Shin Tae-yong revealed that his team swapped their numbers around during training.
“We switched them around because we didn’t want to show our opponents everything and to try and confuse them,” said Shin.
Shin believes his strategy will work because westerners have a hard time differentiating between Asians. “They might know a few of our players but it is very difficult for Westerners to distinguish between Asians,” he said,
Swedish coach Janna Andersson defended Jacobsson over the incident. “He heard about a practice session, he didn’t understand that it was a closed session, he didn’t understand and he watched from a distance,” said Andersson.
“It’s very important we show respect to all our opponents in all circumstances. If someone could interpret it in another way we regret it.”
“It’s been made a mountain out of a molehill.”
South Korea will play Sweden on Monday at 3 p.m. local time.
In other World Cup news, retired Argentine forward Diego Maradona denied making a racist gesture towards South Korean fans during Argentina’s 1-1 draw with Iceland.
