*This content was translated by AI.
- U23 Asian Cup 3rd place match at midnight on the 23rd
Lee Min-sung will play in the final match of the 2026 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Under-23 (U-23) Asian Cup. The stage is not the final, but the "third place final," and the opponent is Vietnam led by head coach Kim Sang-sik. It is a game that must be preserved even if it is the last pride, and it is also a game that is inevitable to have a strong aftermath if it loses.
South Korea's U-23 national soccer team, led by head coach Lee Min-sung, will face Vietnam in the third-place match of the tournament at King Abdullah Sports City Hall Stadium in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at 0 a.m. on the 24th (Korea time).
South Korea, which barely passed the group stage with one win, one draw and one loss (four points), including a shock loss to Uzbekistan, two years younger, beat Australia 2-1 to advance to the semifinals, but also lost to Japan, two years younger, 0-1, falling to the third place final. He stopped the early elimination of the quarterfinals of the 2022 and 2024 tournaments, but his pride was greatly hurt as he knelt helplessly against Japan.
Lee Min-sung, who failed to win for the first time in six years since the 2020 tournament, will now play his last match against Vietnam for the third place. This is not the year when the Olympics are held, so it has nothing to do with the Olympic qualification. Instead, it is important to finish the tournament as high as possible because the results of the tournament will be reflected in the allocation of the pot (seed) to be used in the draw for the 2028 U-23 Asian Cup, which will also be the qualifying round for the Los Angeles (LA) Olympics two years later.
However, they face Vietnam, which has a formidable momentum. Vietnam, led by head coach Kim Sang-sik, previously passed Group A in the first place in all three games. It overpowered Jordan, Kyrgyzstan and host Saudi Arabia. Vietnam, which even the United Arab Emirates (UAE) defeated in the quarterfinals, lost to China 0-3 in the semifinals and fell to the third place final. Still, the overall momentum has risen to the semifinals in Asia again for the first time in eight years since 2018, when head coach Park Hang-seo was led.
Of course, South Korea has the upper hand in objective power from the players' side. In the past, South Korea has never lost to Vietnam's U-23 national team with six wins and three draws. Even when he was on a steep rise under coach Park Hang-seo, his strength was clear, including a 3-1 complete victory in the semifinals of the Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games. However, if it is narrowed down to the last three games, the flow is unusual with one win and two draws. After coach Lee Min-sung's appointment, he only won 1-0 at the Panda Cup in China in November last year. In addition, the 2022 AFC U-23 Asian Cup and the friendly tournament in Yancheng, China, in March last year were all 1-1 games.
The bigger problem is that Lee Min-sung's performance in this tournament cannot guarantee victory over Vietnam. This is due to the lack of performance throughout the tournament, including helpless scoreless losses against two-year-olds Uzbekistan and Japan and allowing two runs to Lebanon, which was considered the weakest in the group stage. Even considering the fact that the composition of the power itself was not smooth, such as overseas transfers and injuries, coach Lee Min-sung's tactical colors were still not revealed, and some players' attitudes of the game were on the cutting board as commentator Lee Young-pyo pointed out stingingly during the broadcast.
If South Korea loses to Vietnam on this day, the U-23 national team's unbeaten match against Vietnam, which began in the 2006 Doha Asian Games, will be broken for the first time in 10 games and about 20 years. It will remain another "disaster" in the history of Korean soccer, and combined with the sluggishness of this tournament, it could be a fatal blow to the issue of coach Lee Min-sung's future. As criticism has already been strong throughout the tournament, a clear turnaround is needed even for the last game. Finishing the tournament in third place through victory over Vietnam is also the last pride to keep under the national flag.
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*This content was translated by AI.
