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South Korea Group With Japan, China, and the UAE at the AFC U-23 Asian Cup..."It's a lot."
3.5 tickets to the Olympic finals in Asia...You have to be in top 3 to go straight to Paris
We have to overcome unfavorable factors such as Bae Jun-ho and Yang Hyun-joon that failed to recruit overseas players


 South Korean men's soccer team will challenge to advance to the Olympic finals for the 10th consecutive time.

The 2024 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Under-23 (U-23) Asian Cup will begin a 19-day battle, starting with the Australia-Jordan match kick-off at the Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium in Doha, Qatar, at 10 p.m. on the 15th.

The U-23 Asian Cup is a biennial competition, and the Games held in the Olympic year, like this year, also serve as the final qualifying round for the Olympics.

This is therefore the final gateway to the 2024 Paris Olympic finals.

Asia has been allocated 3.5 tickets to the Olympic finals.

The two teams that advanced to the finals of the tournament and the one that won the third-place match will first take three tickets.

The fourth-place team must win the 2023 U-23 Afrika Nations Cup fourth-place Guinea in the play-off to go to Paris.

The first goal of the South Korean U-23 national team, led by head coach Hwang Sun-hong, is to advance to the Olympic finals.

South Korea, which has been on the roster since the 1988 Seoul Olympics, will record 10 consecutive Olympic appearances if it reaches the finals of this year's event.

It was the world's first record from advancing to the '8th consecutive time' achieved when he advanced to the finals of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro competition.

However, the situation surrounding Hwang Seon-hong is not easy. Some predict that the final qualifying round for the Olympics will be the most difficult one ever.

While the second place in each group advanced to the quarterfinals, Korea was grouped with Japan, China, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Group B.

South Korean soccer has been weak against Japan in recent years, with its weakness in age-specific competitions being noticeable, including a 0-3 loss in the 2022 U-23 Asian Cup quarterfinals and the 2023 U-17 Asian Cup final showdown.

On top of that, China, which tends to come out roughly, is also a tough opponent.

This is why some say it is difficult to guarantee that Hwang Sun-hong will even pass the group stage.

South Korea will play its first match against the UAE at the Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium in Doha at 0:30 a.m. on the 17th.

It will then face China at 10 p.m. on the 19th and Japan at 10 p.m. on the 22nd.

It is fortunate that Hwang Sun-hong will play his first match against the UAE, which has a total of 2 wins and 1 losses, including two consecutive wins.

The team's internal situation is also not good. Most of the overseas transfers, which are the core of the team's strength, have failed.

Coach Hwang called in Kim Min-woo (Dusseldorf), Yang Hyun-joon (Celtic), Jung Sang-bin (Minnesota), Kim Ji-soo (Brentford), and Bae Joon-ho (Stock City), of which Yang Hyun-joon, Kim Ji-soo, and Bae Joon-ho failed to move out.

In particular, it is not a small hit that Bae Joon-ho, who has been active at the core of the attack development, cannot be utilized.

Jung Sang-bin, who is scheduled to join only on the 15th, a day before the first round of local time, did not participate in the Western Asian Football Federation (WAFF) U-23 Championship, where Hwang Sun-hong participated last month, so he has to work with the existing players in a hurry.

The "injury" is also a source of concern for Hwang. Baek Sang-hoon, a key midfielder, had been treated for a knee injury before leaving Korea to join the national team on Tuesday.

Coach Hwang said, "There are difficulties due to overseas transfer and injury issues, but those things happen a lot in the competition," and added, "I will do my best to overcome the difficulties and win a berth to the Olympic finals for 10 consecutive times."