Olympic soccer team confirms March tournament in Saudi Arabia and April training schedule
The March and April schedule has been finalized for the Olympic Team (head coach Hwang Sun-hong) as they look to qualify for their 10th consecutive Olympic Games.
The Olympic Team will first compete as an invitational team at the West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) U-23 Championship during the March A-Match. The WAFF U-23 Championship will be held from March 18-26 in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. Eight Olympic teams from South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Iraq, Australia, Thailand, and Egypt will compete.
Each team will play three matches in the tournament. It’s a quarterfinal tournament format, 안전카지노사이트 with the winners and losers playing each other to determine the rankings from first through eighth.
After the draw on Thursday, South Korea will open the tournament against Thailand on Feb. 20. Depending on the outcome of the Thailand match, they will play the winner or loser of the Saudi Arabia-Jordan match on the 23rd, followed by the final ranking match on the 26th.
The roster for the tournament will be announced on the 11th, the same day the national team will be named. The team is expected to assemble at Incheon International Airport on the night of the 17th to depart for Saudi Arabia.
The WAFF U-23 Championship will be led by Myung Jae-yong, as Hwang Sun-hong will take over as interim head coach for the team’s two World Cup qualifying matches against Thailand. In addition, Hwang Hee-hoon, a former coach of the Korea Football Association, will join the Olympic team as goalkeeping coach during the tournament, replacing Kim Il-jin, who will serve as interim goalkeeping coach.
The final preparation camp and training schedule has also been finalized ahead of the U-23 Asian Cup, the final qualifier for the Paris Olympics in April in Qatar. The Olympic Team will return home after the WAFF U-23 Championship and reconvene in Korea on April 2 to finalize the roster. On April 5, the team will depart for the UAE to train in Dubai. On April 9, the team will have a final warm-up with a practice match against a Middle Eastern team in the region. On April 10, they will arrive in Doha for the final qualifier.
Sixteen teams will compete in the final Asian qualifier for the Paris Olympics, with the top three qualifying directly to the Olympic Games, while the fourth-place team will play a playoff against the fourth-place team from the African qualifier. South Korea is in Group B and will face the UAE (April 16), China (April 19), and Japan (April 22).