*This content was translated by AI.
The Korea Football Association's Power Enhancement Committee meeting on the 2026 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Under-23 Asian Cup will be held in the middle of next month. Although coach Lee Min-sung's future is not directly discussed, the review of the tournament and the evaluation of the national team's performance can ultimately have a decisive effect on whether coach Lee Min-sung will be replaced or retained.
According to the Korea Football Association on the 29th, the Power Reinforcement Committee under Hyun Young-min, chairman of the Power Reinforcement Committee, will be held at Korea Football Park in Cheonan, Chungcheongnam-do in the middle of next month. The Korea Electric Power Hardening Committee consists of Hyun, Kim Ho-young, technical chairman of the Korea Professional Football Federation, Kim Do-kyun, head coach of Seoul E-Land, Kim Eun-joong, former coach of Suwon FC, Lee Mi-yeon, former national team member and director of the Korea Football Association, and Kim Jong-jin, former Indonesian national team power analyst.
Coach Lee Min-sung and other coaches of the U-23 national team will also attend the power reinforcement committee to review the last Asian Cup. Earlier, when asked by reporters about what went well and what needs to be improved on his way home after the tournament, head coach Lee Min-sung said, "I think it would be better to make a comprehensive presentation after reviewing with the Korea Football Association and the Korea Power Reinforcement Committee."
It is common to have meetings to review the competition after the international competition, but the contents and results of this meeting are likely to be directly related to the issue of director Lee Min-sung's future. This is because Lee Min-sung was in fourth place at the 2026 AFC U-23 Asian Cup, and faced strong criticism due to his poor performance throughout the tournament. Coach Lee's contract period goes from the Aichi and Nagoya Asian Games in September this year to the Los Angeles (LA) Olympics two years later. If you fail to advance to the Olympic finals after failing to qualify for the Olympics, the contract will naturally be terminated.
There is not much time until the Asian Games, which are trying to win their fourth consecutive title, but the Korea Football Association has already decided to replace the former head coach of the Asian Games, citing the sluggishness of the AFC U-23 Asian Cup. This is an example of the replacement of Kim Bong-gil, the coach of the U-23 national team at the time in February 2018. At that time, the national supervisory appointment committee under Chairman Kim Pan-gon decided to terminate the contract with director Kim in the middle. It was only six months before the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games, which was the contract period.
One of the decisive processes that led to the conclusion of head coach Kim Bong-gil's contract termination was the "contest review." At the time, Chairman Kim Pan-gon said, "After comprehensively evaluating the performance of the national team participating in the AFC U-23 Championship (currently the Asian Cup), we concluded that it was better to terminate the contract with head coach Kim Bong-gil."
Lee Min-sung's performance was widely considered to have continued throughout the tournament, losing helplessly to two-year-old Uzbekistan and Japan and kneeling on Vietnam for the first time in history. Furthermore, it is pointed out as a big problem that the slump has continued since the launch of Lee Min-sung in May last year, with 0-4 losses to Saudi Arabia or 0-2 losses to China in practice games and friendlies last year.
The key is how coldly and objectively the power reinforcement committee under Chairman Hyun Young-min can review Lee Min-sung's last AFC U-23 Asian Cup. The appointment of head coach Lee Min-sung as the head coach of the U-23 national team was due to the current chairman's power reinforcement committee. Chairman Hyun Young-min said at the time of the appointment of head coach Lee Min-sung in May last year, "Coach Lee Min-sung has his own clear philosophy about the game model, and he expressed his strong will and confidence in the manager's position through specific team management plans." It is inevitably burdensome to reverse the evaluation at the time and dismiss the coach less than a year after his appointment.
However, despite the sluggishness revealed throughout the last Asian Cup, if the coach Lee Min-sung's system is strengthened, the aftermath will inevitably be directed to the current power reinforcement committee under Chairman Lee Min-sung and Chairman Hyun Young-min. Kim Hak-beom, who was newly launched at the time when the coach was replaced in the aftermath of the Asian Cup's sluggish performance, not only won the gold medal at the Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games, but also headed to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with his first AFC U-23 Asian Cup victory two years later. On the contrary, Hwang Sun-hong, who was determined to remain in the AFC U-23 Asian Cup quarterfinals, was defeated in the quarterfinals again at the U-23 Asian Cup two years later, failing to advance to the Olympic finals for the first time in 40 years.
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*This content was translated by AI.
