Temporary men's football coach stresses need to focus on controllables amid controversy

CHEONAN — With the men's national football team under intense scrutiny due to a controversy surrounding apparent discord among key players, Robert Moreno, the squad's temporary head coach, insisted on the need to focus on the controllables Thursday. Moreno announced a 26-man squad for friendlies against Saudi Arabia and Qatar scheduled for November. Rather than those upcoming matches, his press conference at Korea Football Park in Cheonan, some 80 kilometers south of Seoul, was instead dominated by questions surrounding the status of the central figures in reports of friction within the team. Kim Min-jae, Hwang Hee-chan and Hwang In-beom, collectively called the "1996 group" based on their birth years, reportedly told their Korea teammates they wanted to retire from international play after a 2-0 win over Uzbekistan on Oct. 6 because they were unhappy with the longtime captain Son Heung-min, four years their senior. While none of the three acted on that, the incident divided football fans and fueled speculation that these four players may never again play on the same national team. Mor