JAKARTA - South Korea U-23 lost to Indonesia U-23 in the 2024 U-23 Asian Cup quarter-finals at Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium, Friday, April 26, 2024, early morning WIB.
Taegeuk Warriors must admit the superiority of Garuda Muda on penalties with a score of 10-11 after the match ended 2-2 until the extra round.
Assistant coach Myung Jae-yong revealed several reasons that contributed to the defeat of South Korea U-23.
Unable to play their top scorer, Lee Young-jun, from the start it turned out to be influential for performance in the front line. Lee Young-jun can only be lowered in the 46th minute.
The three-goal scorer throughout the 2024 U-23 Asian Cup did not even perform optimally when he was fielded. In fact, he made South Korea U-23 even more depressed.
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Lee Young-jun was given a red card directly by the referee after committing a serious foul on Justin Hubner in the 70th minute.
In addition, the issue of fitness is also still an unsolved problem for Taegeuk Warriors when they meet Indonesia U-23. "There are several players whose conditions are not good. When Lee Tae-seok (left wing back) is injured, we have to change the formation of the four defenders."
"However, unfortunately our tactics did not work and today is not the right day for us," said Myung.
It didn't stop there, Myung argued that South Korea's U-23 appearance was not optimal in the 2024 U-23 Asian Cup because they could not call players who took part in Europe.
Bae Jun-ho (Stoke City), Yang Hyun-jun (Celtic), and Kim Ji-soo (Brentford) are not released by their clubs. Myung admits that it affects the team's overall performance. "We had difficulty showing good performance due to the lack of players based in Europe. We tried to do our best to call them, but for some reason they couldn't join the team. It affected the team's overall performance," Myung said on the AFC page.
Despite these reasons, Myung acknowledged that the performance of the Taegeuk Warriors deserves appreciation.
Representing head coach Hwang Sun-hong who received a red card during the match, Myung praised the mentality of the players.
They can rise from behind twice and never give up even though they play with 10 players.
"First of all, congratulations to Indonesia U-23. Even though we got a red card, the players never gave up and scored the equalizer. We weren't lucky enough to take on a penalty shootout." We thought it would be very difficult to get up from behind to beat the opponent. I told my kids we had to take advantage of a dead ball or a counter-attack. They played according to instructions and I don't blame them."
Failure to step into the semifinals of the U-23 Asian Cup is not the first time they have experienced it. They previously achieved this minor achievement in the 2022 edition.
At that time, the Taegeuk Warriors were stopped by Japan U-23 in the quarter-finals with a landslide defeat of 0-3.
In the previous five U-23 Asian Cups, four times South Korea U-23 managed to break through the semifinals.
Two of them ended in fourth place (2013 and 2018), one won in 2020, and the other had to settle for being runners-up in the 2016 edition.
South Korea U-23 has never missed a participation in the U-23 Asian Cup. However, in this year's edition, they had to be eliminated in the quarter-finals by the debutant team, Indonesia U-23.
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