By Kim Tae Won and Hahm Hee-eun

The Korean national men's soccer team will continue to wear its traditional red uniform at the 2018 FIFA World Cup, to be hosted in Russia this summer.

The Korea Football Association (KFA) announced its new home kit of red and black, and its away kit of white, on March 22.

The new kit resembles the Taegeukgi national flag in many ways. The top of the home kit is red, the same color as the upper part of the taegeuk mark on the flag, the yin-yang symbol. The bottom is black, the color of the four trigrams, of geon, gon, gam and ri. On the left of the chest, the tiger emblem of the KFA is also in black and white, the colors of the four trigrams, and the background has a Taegeukgi in it.

A red uniform is a great memory for many Korean soccer fans, and for the team itself. Ever since the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korea and Japan, in which Korea managed to reach the semi-finals, the national men's team has had good luck with the combination of red top and white shorts. The team had three wins, one draw and one loss at that competition, a winning rate of 60 percent, and so those uniform colors are seen as good luck charms. Also wearing red top and white shorts, Team Korea won its World Cup away matches against Togo in the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany and against Greece in the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

Meanwhile, it has been 24 years since an all-white kit has been selected for the team's away uniform. The all-white kit has only been used two times in its history, in the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy and in the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the U.S., with no wins in either tournament. It's worth noting that the jinx is hopefully going to be broken this year in Russia.

This year will also be the first time that black shorts have been worn as part of Korea's World Cup uniform. Even including the preliminaries, black shorts were not worn for 20 years, since the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France. At that time, the national team in its red top and black shorts won its final preliminary match against Japan 2:1.

Hong Myung-bo, the managing director of the KFA, recalled all this and said, “I hope that the atmosphere of victory would be passed on to our players at the World Cup in Russia.”


twkim0717@korea.kr