*This content was translated by AI.
Is it a prelude to a reversal or a repetition of the history of humiliation.
South Korea's under-23 (U-23) soccer team, led by head coach Lee Min-sung, will try to advance to the semifinals of the 2026 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U-23 Asian Cup. The stage is the match against Australia in the quarterfinals of the tournament to be held at King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia at 0:30 a.m. on the 18th (Korea Standard Time).
The journey up to the tournament was not easy. After drawing 0-0 with Iran in Group C, they won 4-2 against Lebanon. In the final match, Uzbekistan, which played for the U-21 national team, rather than the U-23, suffered a 0-2 complete defeat. South Korea, which only accumulated four points (1 win, 1 draw and 1 loss), was on the verge of elimination from the group stage for the first time ever, but Iran managed to reach the quarterfinals as second place in the group after losing to Lebanon.
Not only did he not reach the quarterfinals on his own, but he also suffered a helpless defeat by Uzbekistan, two years younger. Even the previous Iran-Lebanon match was not good, so it faces Australia in a situation where criticism is strong. Australia was previously shocked by China in the group stage, but it is a team that reached the quarterfinals as No. 1 in the group with a theater come-from-behind victory that scored an equalizer and an upset goal in extra time in the final match against Iraq. South Korea has the upper hand with nine wins, four draws and three losses in the past between the U-23 national teams, but they were pushed to one draw and one loss in the two consecutive domestic warm-up matches in June last year, shortly after the launch of Lee Min-sung.
Victory is desperately needed as it is now a tournament stage with no place to retreat. In particular, the quarterfinals of the tournament are a round in which Korean soccer has repeatedly experienced a humiliating history of "early elimination," so Lee Min-sung must break the trend.
In fact, South Korea, led by head coach Hwang Sun-hong, was eliminated early in the quarterfinals at the 2022 Uzbekistan Games and the 2024 Qatar Games. In 2022, he suffered a humiliating 0-3 defeat to the then Japanese U-21 national team. At the 2024 Olympics, which also served as the preliminary round for the 2024 Paris Olympics, he lost to Indonesia after a penalty shootout and experienced the frustration of failing to advance to the Olympic finals for the first time in 40 years. The last time South Korea advanced to the semifinals of the tournament was in Thailand in 2020, when it won the championship. At least recently, Korean soccer has become a team that has not even passed the quarterfinals at the U-23 Asian Cup.
If Lee Min-sung breaks the trend through the quarterfinals against Australia, he can shake off the previous group slump and change the atmosphere at once. In the semifinals, they will meet the winner of the Japan-Jordan match, and as Japan is likely to go up, the "Four-Finals Korea-Japan match" may take place. If the team changes the atmosphere at once through the match against Australia, and further defeats the match against Korea and Japan to reach the final of the tournament, negative public opinion toward coach Lee Min-sung and the U-23 national team could be reversed at once. Meeting Australia and Japan one after another as they reach the quarterfinals as the second place in the group can be a crisis and an opportunity at the same time.
However, on the contrary, if he fails to achieve a turnaround in the match against Australia, Lee Min-sung will face criticism throughout his journey to the Aichi and Nagoya Asian Games in September and the Los Angeles (LA) Olympics two years later. In some cases, it may have a direct impact on the direction of immigration supervision. Above all, the humiliating record and humiliation of being eliminated from the quarterfinals for the third consecutive time at the Asian Games will be engraved in the history of Korean soccer. Coach Lee Min-sung said, "Australia has good organizational power and balance of offense and defense, and is a strong team physically," but added, "We will prepare well so that the entire team can show an unashamed performance in the national flag."
<© STARNEWS. All rights reserved. No reproduction or redistribution allowed.>
*This content was translated by AI.
