Nothing lasts forever. Records are meant to be broken. But a disaster that becomes a reality is an unbearable pain.
South Korean soccer will not be at the Olympics for the first time in 40 years. April 26, 2024, will be a black day in Korean soccer history.
South Korea”s first Olympic appearance was in London in 1948. In 1952, the team did not participate in Helsinki due to financial problems. In 1956 in Melbourne and 1960 in Rome, when regional qualifiers were introduced for the first time, the team failed to qualify from the Asian zone.
The chance to qualify again came in 1964 in Tokyo, and it was a long dark night. Korea failed to qualify five times in a row, from Mexico in 1968 to Los Angeles in 1984.
It wasn’t until 1988 in Seoul that they emerged from the tunnel of failure. They qualified for nine consecutive Olympic Games until Tokyo 2020. They retained their status as the world record holder. Their most glorious Games were in London 2012. 카지노사이트 They roared to victory with their first ever Olympic bronze medal.
However, we don”t see soccer at the Olympics.
Their bid to qualify for a 10th consecutive Olympics went out the window. It was the ‘Doha disaster’ in the Southeast Asian nation of Indonesia.
The South Korea Under-23 soccer team, led by coach Hwang Sun-hong (56), fell to Shin Tae-yong’s Indonesia in the quarterfinals of the 2024 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U-23 Asian Cup at the Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium in Doha, Qatar, on Sunday.
Despite being outnumbered following the sending off of Lee Young-joon (Gimcheon), Hwang Sun-hongho’s side battled to a 2-2 draw after 120 minutes of extra time, but went down 10-11 on penalties. Asia is allotted 3.5 tickets to the Olympic Games. They need to reach the quarterfinals to qualify.
But South Korea’s journey stopped in the quarterfinals. Indonesia is ranked 134th by the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA), while South Korea is ranked 23rd. It’s been 40 years since South Korean soccer failed to qualify for the Olympics, since the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
It was a bumpy start. After the controversial Qatar Asian Cup, head coach Jürgen Klinsmann was sacked from the A team. In March, the Korea Football Association (KFA) brought in Hwang Sun-hong as an emergency coach for the second Asian qualifier for the 2026 North and Central American World Cup against Thailand.
The Olympic team was participating in the West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) U-23 Championship as an invitational team. In Hwang’s place, head coach Myung Jae-yong led the team.
It was a setback.
In the A team, Hwang neatly sealed the conflict between Son Heung-min (Tottenham) and Lee Kang-in (Paris Saint-Germain) that was sparked by “Ping Ponggate”. The Olympic team, however, was a different story.
The U-23 Asian Cup is not a mandatory FIFA qualifying tournament. That’s why Hwang traveled to England, Scotland, and elsewhere and asked each club to send a player. Even if he received a positive response, he still needed to have a Plan B and C in place.
His fears were realized. After Yang Hyun-joon (Celtic) and Kim Ji-Soo (Brentford), Bae Jun-ho (Stoke City) was not called up. 메이저사이트 The crisis response was poor. In the second game against China, Signe Kwan (Bucheon) was sidelined with a hamstring (back thigh muscle) injury.
There was no luck. Against Indonesia, defensive faltering ended their bid to qualify for their 10th consecutive Olympic Games. It was a self-inflicted disaster. The poverty of the Korean Football Association’s philosophy is also to blame. ‘Improvisation’ came back to bite them in the ass.
Hwang won a gold medal at last year’s Asian Games in Hangzhou. However, the failure to qualify for the Olympic Games was a major stain.