South Korean players react to their 11-10 penalty shootout loss to Indonesia in the quarterfinals at the Asian Football Confederation U-23 Asian Cup at Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium in Doha on April 25, 2024, in this photo provided by the Korea Football Association. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Apr. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — After South Korea crashed out of the Olympic men’s football qualifying tournament in Qatar on Thursday night, assistant coach Myung Jae-yong blamed the early exit on injuries and absences of key players.
South Korea lost to Indonesia 11-10 on penalties after the teams were tied at 2-2 in the quarterfinals of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U-23 Asian Cup at Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium in Doha. This competition is also the AFC qualifying event for the Paris Olympics. With only the top three teams earning tickets to France, South Korea were eliminated from contention after the first knockout match.
Myung attended the postmatch press conference after head coach Hwang Sun-hong was shown a red card in the late stages of the loss.
Myung congratulated Indonesia on their win and praised his own team for forcing the shootout after trailing 2-1 early and going down a man in the 70th minute with ejection of forward Lee Young-jun.
“You have to be lucky in penalty shootouts, and we didn’t have luck on our side tonight,” Myung said. “We had several players who were injured or who weren’t feeling 100 percent. It would have been difficult for us to score the go-ahead goal in extra time, unless we scored on a set piece or a counter break. I think our players executed the plan really well until the end, despite some difficult circumstances.”
Myung explained that Lee, the team’s leading scorer in Qatar with three goals, was sent in at the start of the second half, because the coaching staff felt the match could go to extra time and Lee was not in condition to play the full 120 minutes.
South Korea head coach Hwang Sun-hong (L) leaves the bench after being shown a red card during his team’s quarterfinal match against Indonesia at the Asian Football Confederation U-23 Asian Cup at Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium in Doha on April 25, 2024, in this photo provided by the Korea Football Association. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
But Lee took himself out of the match after fouling Justin Hubner. Lee received a yellow card at first, but a video assistant referee review upgraded the caution to a straight red card. Replays showed Lee had stepped on Hubner’s foot as he ran into the Indonesian defender.
“We wanted to take our best shot in the second half with Lee Young-jun,” Myung said. “But we just had a bad situation happen there.”
Myung added that missing some Europe-based players in Qatar hurt South Korea.
Hwang initially called up five players based in foreign leagues, but three of them were not released by their respective clubs. Celtic forward Yang Hyun-jun, Stoke City midfielder Bae Jun-ho and Brentford defender Kim Ji-soo all could have made a difference for South Korea, whose offense lacked creativity and defense lacked stability.
Since the AFC event isn’t on the FIFA international match calendar, clubs were not under any obligation to release their Korean players.
“It’s true that missing Europe-based players made things difficult for us,” Myung said. “We used multiple channels to get those clubs to agree to send their players our way. But then right before the tournament, we weren’t able to get them here for several reasons.”
(Yonhap)
