Correspondent Yoo Ji-ho and Lee Dae-ho = The Czech Republic will participate for the first time in history at the World Baseball Classic (WBC), the world’s largest baseball festival that opens next month.카지노사이트
Most of the players in the national team belong to the domestic league, and in the WBC preliminaries final last September, the Czech Republic beat Spain, which consisted mainly of US minor league prospects, 3-1 and received the right to participate.
The Czech Republic, which has been drawn in Group B with Korea, Japan, Australia and China, is set to play Korea in the final match at the Tokyo Dome in Japan on March 10th.
Head coach Pavel Hadim (52), who has led the Czech national baseball team since 2010, said in an interview with Yonhap News on the 16th, “I have been in charge of the under-23 national team for over 10 years, so I know most of the players in the current national team well.” seemed
Europe is a complete baseball periphery.
The US Major League Secretariat continues to play MLB games in London, England, with the goal of globalizing baseball, but baseball is an unfamiliar sport to them, just as cricket is unfamiliar to us.
Most of the Dutch national team, which advanced to the semifinals of the WBC twice in a row in 2013 and 2017, are also from Curaçao and Aruba, a Caribbean province.
“We believe that Czech and European baseball play a valuable role on the world stage,” said Hadim, who is silently putting his energy into helping baseball take root in Europe.
“I think participating in this world’s most prestigious tournament will motivate young Czech baseball players. My goal is to participate in the tournament four years later,” he said. ” was expected.
Coach Lee Kang-cheol (57), who leads the Korean national baseball team, said of the Czech Republic in the first round of the finals, “I don’t look at it easily. The Czech Republic is also doing a power analysis.”
Among them, infielder Eric Sogard (37) is the number one target to be wary of.
Sogad, the only major league player in the Czech Republic, acquired Czech citizenship in 2022.