*This content was translated by AI.
South Korea's under-23 (U-23) national soccer team will face tough opponent Australia in the 2026 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) quarterfinals tournament.
South Korea, led by head coach Lee Min-sung, was completely defeated 0-2 in the final Group C match against Uzbekistan at Prince Faisal bin Fakhd Stadium in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on the 13th (Korea Standard Time) and came to the quarterfinals as second place in Group C.
South Korea, which had earlier drawn 0-0 with Iran and defeated Lebanon 4-2, was on the verge of being eliminated for the first time ever due to a complete defeat against Uzbekistan, but at the same time, Lebanon beat Iran and successfully advanced to the quarterfinals.
In the final Group D match held on the 14th, Australia came from behind to win 2-1 in which two goals were scored in additional time after the first loss and ranked first in Group D.
Australia beat Thailand and lost to China in the group stage earlier, but the victory over Iraq accumulated six points (2-1), beating China (1 win, 2 draws, 5 points) to pass the group stage.
As a result, the confrontation between South Korea and Australia was confirmed according to the match table of the tournament where the second place in Group C and the first place in Group D will clash in the quarterfinals. South Korea and Australia will clash at 0:30 a.m. on the 18th at the Prince Abdullah Alfaisal Sports City Stadium in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Australia was ranked third in the 2020 Thailand tournament and fourth in the 2022 Uzbekistan tournament, but it was eliminated from the group stage at the previous tournament, the 2024 Qatar tournament.
South Korea leads the U-23 national team with nine wins, four draws and three losses. However, since the appointment of coach Lee Min-sung, he had only one draw and one loss in two warm-up matches in June last year.
In addition to the Korea-Australia match, the quarterfinals of this tournament will be played against Japan (No. 1 in Group B) and Jordan (No. 2 in Group A), Vietnam (No. 1 in Group A), the United Arab Emirates (UAE, No. 2 in Group B), Uzbekistan (No. 1 in Group C) and China (No. 2 in Group D). The quarterfinals will be held in two games on the 16th and 17th, respectively.
If South Korea beats Australia and reaches the semifinals, it will compete with the winner of the Japan-Jordan match to advance to the final. In some cases, a match between Korea and Japan may be held to advance to the finals. Japan has included the U-21 national team in this tournament, but it is a team that has previously passed Group B with three wins and 10 points without losing a point. South Korea is ahead of South Korea with eight wins, four draws and six losses in the past between the U-23 national teams.
If South Korea reaches the semifinals of the tournament, the game will be held at 10:30 p.m. on the 20th. The third-place match is scheduled at midnight on the 23rd and the final match at midnight on the 24th, respectively.
The 2024 event was the year when the 2024 Paris Olympics were held, so the AFC U-23 Asian Cup also served as the Olympic Asian qualifying round, but the Olympics were not held this year, so the performance of this event is irrelevant to the Olympic qualification. Instead, the results of this competition will be reflected in the allocation of the port (seed) to be used in the draw for the 2028 finals, the year the 2028 Los Angeles (LA) Olympics will be held.
South Korea is aiming for its second career championship since the 2020 Thailand Games. In all four tournaments, including the first tournament, they made the semifinals or higher, but they were eliminated early in the quarterfinals in both the 2022 Uzbekistan Games and the 2024 Qatar Games. Immediately after the complete defeat against Uzbekistan, Lee Min-sung, head coach of the U-23 national team, said, "The quarterfinal match should go to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The analysis of the quarterfinals is after the match has been decided, he said. "First of all, it is urgent to identify your own problems. Our team's analysis comes first," he said.
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*This content was translated by AI.
