U23 Asian Cup: Avoiding Humiliation & History Rewritten

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2026 Asian Football Federation (AFC) 23 years old (U-23) Asian Cup finals were completed. Korea, led by director Lee Min -sung, belonged to a group with Uzbekistan and Iran. It’s not a big team, but the worst group is avoided.

Korea belonged to the group league Group C along with Uzbekistan, Iran, and Lebanon in the final draw of the competition in the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on the 2nd (Korea time). Uzbeks are the top seed team, and Iran and Lebanon headed to Port 3 and Port 4, respectively.

If the team A participates in the competition, it may be called the ‘worst group organization’, but it is still a U-23 age competition. First of all, Korea was pushed to Port 2 during the drawing process, and it was inevitable to face the team in Port 1. Nevertheless, in Port 1, it may be a good thing that the host country has avoided Saudi Arabia and Japan.

Of course, Uzbekistan is a strong team that cannot be ignored by the age group, as it is a runner -up in two consecutive tournaments. However, Korea is showing an overwhelming strength of 12 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses in the history of U-23 national teams with Uzbek. It was so strong that he had won the recent confrontation, including the semi -finals of the Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023 and the Friendship Competition in 2025.

In port 3, Iran belonged to the same group as Korea, and this age group is not as threatening as the A team. Participating in the finals of the fourth round, the quarter -finals are the best, and all of the other three competitions were eliminated from the group stage. Even during the previous competition, even the qualifiers could not be passed. The same reason is that Iran belongs to Port 3 as a chin instead of port 1 or port 2. Lebanon is the first final of the U-23 Asian Cup.

Fortunately, the worst group formation was avoided, and now only full preparation was left to break the history of humiliation.

Korea has reached the top of the tournament with six games in the 2020 tournament, led by Kim Hak -bum. However, during the 2022 Uzbekistan, and the Qatar competition in 2024, he was eliminated early in the quarter -finals.

The process and the result were humiliating. In the quarter-finals in 2022, rival Japan was defeated by 0-3. In the quarter -finals of the 2024 tournament, he lost to Indonesia after a penalty shootout. In particular, in the previous competition, which served as the 2024 Paris Olympic Qualifiers, he suffered a shame that failed to advance to the Olympic finals in 40 years due to the aftermath of the quarterfinals.

The fact that Korea was pushed to Port 2, not Port 1, was also directly related to the recent performance of the competition. This is because the recent three tournament scores have been converted into points and then used for port assignments. In 2020, when Korea won, only 25%of the performance was reflected, while the 2022 tournament, which was eliminated from the quarter -finals, was 50%, and the 2024 tournament was 100%.

Of course, next year is not the year of the Olympics, so even if you win the competition, it has nothing to do with the Olympics. Nevertheless, it is a must -see competition to recapture normal, even in order to erase the great wounds of Korean soccer pride. It is also meaningful in that it is an outpost of Aichi-Nagoya (Japan) Asian Games next year.

-Article B: Japan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Syria

-Article C: Uzbekistan, koreaIran, Lebanon

-Group D: Iraq, Australia, Thailand, China

By Kim Myung -seok, reporter elcrack@mtstarnews.com