HWANG SUN-HONG “FOCUS ON ASIAN GAMES, LEE KANG-IN JOINING YET”

After qualifying for the 2024 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U-23 Championship, head coach Hwang Sun-hong vowed to improve the team’s goalkeeping and focus on the upcoming Hangzhou Asian Games.Hwang Sun-hong’s Paris Olympics-ready U-22 team defeated ‘underdogs’ Myanmar 3-0 in their third Group B match of the 2024 AFC U-23 Qualifiers at the Changwon Football Center in Gyeongnam on Wednesday.With their second straight win, South Korea topped Group B and qualified for the 2024 AFC U-23 Asian Cup in April-May next year.Speaking at the post-match press conference, Hwang said, “The players played hard and we qualified. We executed our game plan well, but I think we felt impatience and difficulty in not scoring.”Hwang was held to one goal against Kyrgyzstan after suffering a 0-2 loss to Qatar in the first match of Group B on June 6.Hwang, who scored three goals against Myanmar on the same day, said, “I saw the need for height in the early stages of the game without being dragged out by the opponent who was dense in the center,” and then added, “In the second half, the opponent seemed to be losing physical strength, so I put in a player with speed, and it worked.”Hwang’s next goal is to qualify for her 10th consecutive Olympic Games.At the U-23 Asian Cup, the final Asian qualifier for next year’s Paris Olympics, the team needs to finish in the top three to punch its ticket to Paris.If they finish fourth, they will have to play a playoff against the fourth-place team from the African final qualifier.”The most difficult thing is to improve our goal decision-making,” says Hwang. I think it was a tournament where we were less decisive in terms of chances and attacking frequency,” he said. “We will have stronger opponents in the main round, so we will improve our goal decision-making.”Hwang will now return to the Asian Games squad and set his sights on a gold medal for Korea.”We’re still waiting to hear back from Lee Kang-in (Paris Saint-Germain),” Hwang said. “I feel like we’ve completed the first round of the Olympic qualifiers, and now we’ll focus on the second round, the Asian Games.”Myanmar, who finished their U-23 Asian Cup qualification campaign in third place in Group B with a 1-1 draw, said, “We wanted to be more organized against the fast Korean players, but I don’t think we were able to execute our attacking situations well.” “We played a good game, but the level of Korea was high,” said Myanmar head coach Aung Naing.”They had a lot of talented and quality players, and they had the 스포츠토토링크 advantage in organization, build-up, etc. I think they will do well at the Asian Cup.”