The Korean women’s soccer team will compete for the top of Asia by acquiring the qualification for the FIFA Women’s World Cup finals for the third time in a row at the 2022 Asian Football Federation (AFC) Asian Cup.
The Korean women’s soccer team, led by coach Colin Bell (England), will start the 2022 Asian Cup schedule with Vietnam’s Group C match against Vietnam on the 21st at Siri Sib Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Pune, India.
In this tournament, the priority is to acquire a place in the Women’s World Cup, co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand in 2023. You must be in the top 5 to qualify for the World Cup finals.
However, the national team is not satisfied with entering 5th place and is determined to aim for the top of Asia this time.
The women’s Asian Cup started in 1975 and this year is the 20th, and China has won the championship eight times.
In the last two tournaments (2014 and 2018), Japan and Australia faced each other in the finals, and Japan won the championship, and China finished third in a row.
At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, in addition to host Japan, Australia and China took the preliminaries to the Asian finals through the preliminary rounds, and it seems that the ‘third round’ has been formed in Asian women’s soccer.
Korea is constantly challenging these countries, but has not been able to completely break the wall, such as losing to China in the playoffs in the final qualifying rounds of the Tokyo Olympics and being frustrated at the threshold of the first ever final.
Since 1991, she has never reached the final of the Women’s Asian Cup.
He advanced to the semifinals four times (in 1995, 2001, 2003, and 2014), and his best result was third place in 2003.
As the first foreign manager in Korean women’s football history, coach Bell has revealed his ambition to take the lead in Asian women’s football from existing players.
The national team, who took a stinging mock test due to evaluation matches against the United States and New Zealand during the match A from October to November last year, finished quenching in Namhae, Gyeongsangnam-do before the tournament.
‘Ace’ Ji So-yeon (Chelsea Women), Jo So-hyun (Tottenham), Lee Geum-min (Brighton), and other ‘Europeans’, as well as Jang Seul-gi, Choi Yu-ri (Hyundai Steel), and Chu Hyo-joo (Suwon FC), showed their skills in Korea. The players who are smoking are gathering strength by boarding the final entry.
In this tournament, 12 countries are divided into three groups to play a group stage, and the first and second place teams in each group, and the two best teams from the third place teams advance to the quarterfinals to determine the winner in a single match.
In the group stage, the first gateway, Korea will compete in Group C with Vietnam, Myanmar and Japan. They will face off against Myanmar on the 24th and Japan on the 27th. In this group, Korea and Japan are expected to compete for first place.
Korea’s first opponent, Vietnam, has an absolute advantage with 11 wins in their history. The most recent match was the group stage match for the final qualifying round for the Tokyo Olympics held at the Jeju World Cup Stadium in February 2020.
In the current FIFA rankings, Korea is 18th and Vietnam is 32nd, and Korea is dominant. Vietnam’s best performance in the Asian Cup was 6th place (2014).
However, it is unclear whether the match will be held normally due to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) variable.
Vietnam’s national team is suffering from the new corona virus.
According to a report by Vietnam News Agency (VNA), only 10 people from the Vietnam national team arrived in Pune, where the first game against Korea was held on the 16th, including coach Mai Duc Tung.
Vietnam’s national team trained in Spain in preparation for the Asian Cup, and it is reported that people waiting for the results of the new corona test are expected to enter the country before the game.
Our national team, who left for India on the 15th, also had three confirmed cases each, one by one player and three by the staff.
The organizers of the tournament are planning to proceed with the match as scheduled if there are 13 or more players from each team. yunhap news