Coach Bruce Arena’s squad pose a key hurdle for South Korea in group D as the co-hosts aim to beat Poland and the United States for a place in the final round of 16. Portugal are clear group favourites.
“We’ll see (how it goes) once we step on the field,” Arena told reporters upon arrival in Inchon International Airport.
The team’s press officer, Michael Cammarman, later added: “We certainly hope our performance will be different from 1998.”
“We’ve made every effort since the day French 1998 ended,” he told Reuters.
The squad is scheduled to spend about two weeks training near Seoul ahead of their first match against Portugal on June 5.
The World Cup finals open next Friday in Seoul with title-holders France facing Senegal, and close in Yokohama, Japan on June 30.
With police helicopters roaring above the airport, some 500 riot police, some with bomb-sniffing dogs, escorted the team through dozens of reporters and South Korean fans in a show of security that Arena said was a little surprising.
“We’ve been here and we anticipated great security but perhaps not to this degree,” Arena said from behind a thick police cordon in the airport just 30 km (20 miles) away from the North Korean border.
“But we are not complaining. The Koreans are doing a great job with regard to this security for the U.S. team.”
Partly prompted by the Sept 11 attacks on the United States, World Cup organisers have trained special police squads to guard against acts of terror disrupting the biggest finals in world sport.
But asked if the team were worried about any potential violence during the month-long tournament, Arena said: “We are not concerned about that.”
Some in the crowd waved flags, and a group of Korean war veterans held a massive banner reading “U.S. supported Korea in Korean war, Korea now supports U.S.”
Seoul and Washington remain close allies 50 years after a three-year war drew a borderline between South and North Korea, but leftist activists have sporadically protested against 37,000 U.S. troops stationed at facilities dotted across the country.
“I don’t like America, but we welcome their team,” said a Korean man in his 20s, with a U.S. and a South Korean flag in his hands.—Reuters
Troublemakers warned: Meanwhile, the South Korean police know a thing or two when it comes to handling public disorder.
Television images of baton-wielding officers clashing with students under a hail of Molotov cocktails became notorious around the world during the country’s turbulent journey towards democracy.
These same police — while unlikely to be easily fazed by soccer hooligans — will have to be ready to cope with less familiar threats when the World Cup kicks off in Seoul next Friday.
“Terrorist attacks like 9-11 in the United States are the worst scenario for the World Cup but that kind of terrorist attack will not happen in Korea,” police chief Lee Pal-ho confidently told Reuters in a recent interview.
South Korean police have promised to make the World Cup the safest in soccer history.
Lee said that for security reasons he could only give the outline of arrangements but he said the army, airforce and navy were all involved in plans to thwart potential terrorism.
South Korea has said it will impose no fly-zones over stadiums before and after matches. There have also been local media reports that it is prepared to shoot down suspicious planes, although a defence official denied surface-to-air missiles would be placed at the stadiums.
Lee said some 420,000 of his officers would be deployed at 141 sites during the finals, the world’s biggest sporting event which runs until June 30 and is being jointly hosted with Japan.
Heavily-armed police SWAT teams, backed up by water cannon, dogs and helicopters, will be on standby at South Korea’s 10 World Cup soccer grounds, 32 practice fields and 33 accommodation areas.
Police will also keep a close eye for trouble in nightlife zones such as Seoul’s Itaewon, an area dotted with hostess clubs and pubs and a playground for United States troops based in South Korea.
Bodyguards will be assigned to players, soccer officials and key guests, police say. Team hotels will be equipped with metal detectors and X-ray machines and airport security has been visibly tightened.
Faced with a growing threat of labour unrest over the finals, authorities have banned demonstrations near World Cup stadiums.
The presence of the U.S. squad for at least three first-round matches in Group D makes security even more sensitive.
“We focus on the nations which are possible targets for terrorism, including the United States, so the South Korean national police SWAT team and mobile protection unit will be deployed and will follow and protect them around the clock,” police commissioner Lee said.
Newspapers reports in February said the United States planned to deploy an airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aeroplane and an aircraft carrier during the finals.
The United States already has about 37,000 troops stationed in South Korea to help safeguard a 1953 armed truce with North Korea that still leaves the two sides technically at war.
President George W. Bush in February dubbed North Korea part of an “axis of evil” for trying to develop and proliferate weapons of mass destruction.
—Reuters