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South Korea's U-23 national soccer team, led by coach Hwang Sun-hong, will participate in the final Asian qualifying round for the 2024 Asian Football Confederation U-23 Cup and Paris Olympics, which will kick off in Qatar on Saturday. South Korea aims to advance to the finals for 10 consecutive Olympics from the 1988 Seoul Olympics. The teams ranking first to third in this year's event will advance directly to the finals for the Paris Olympics. The fourth-ranked team will decide its fate through an intercontinental playoff (PO) with African teams.

Korea will have a showdown with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), China (UAE, April 19) and Japan (June 22) in Group B. Ahead of the upcoming World Cup, Hwang Sun-hong worked together at the West Asian Football Confederation U-23 Championship in Saudi Arabia in March. The team has finalized its final roster based on the results. Since then, the team has been sweating profusely in Icheon and Dubai, UAE.

There were ups and downs in the process. The recruitment of Yang Hyun-joon (Celtic) and Kim Ji-soo (Brentford) of overseas leagues has failed. This tournament is not subject to mandatory recruitment. For this reason, Hwang has requested different clubs to recruit players while traveling to England and Scotland. However, each team finally refused to recruit players due to internal reasons.

Soccer Digest, a Japanese soccer media outlet, said, "There is another problem with the Korean national team. Even Kim Ji-soo cannot participate due to his team's circumstances." Another Japanese media outlet, Sankei Sports, also said, "As this tournament is not an A-match period, it is difficult to summon players from overseas leagues. Japan has also failed to invite players from overseas such as Yuito Suzuki (Bronby). After the announcement of the final list, Korea is experiencing difficulties as two players from overseas leagues are unable to join due to circumstances of their teams."

Japan is sensitive to the situation in Korea. As such, the Japanese team is taking the game against Korea as important as it can be. According to Dawson, Oiwa Ko, the coach of the Japanese U-23 team, said, "Playing against Korea does not require motivation," predicting a fierce game.

Meanwhile, according to Japan's Football Zone, China also seems to judge the existence of Korea and Japan very heavily. The Zone said, "Chinese fans are showing poor performance of the national team and are pessimistic about playing against Korea and Japan. They say they need to lose all games." According to China's Sohu and others, Tao Changlong (Wuhan) said, "There are few chances to play against Korea and Japan. They will also have weaknesses."