With the opening of the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games just around the corner, it has been confirmed that the women’s soccer tournament match-up has been changed without further notice.
The women’s national team, led by coach Colin Bell, conducted its final training in preparation for the Hangzhou Asian Games at the Paju National Training Center (NFC) on the morning of the 18th.
Before leaving for Hangzhou, the site of the final match, on the 19th, there was time to reveal the national team to the media. I could also hear the players’ determination.
‘Ace’ Ji So-yeon showed her confidence in the match against Japan, saying, “If we rise to first place in the group, we will meet Japan, but it is not burdensome. I think it will be more burden because we are not able to do our own thing.”
The reason why Ji So-yeon said this was because if Korea ranked first in the group, it would meet the first place in Group D. There is an assessment that Japan is likely to take first place in Group D.
But suddenly the bracket changed. Originally, 17 teams participated in the women’s soccer game at the Asian Games, and the structure was to assign three teams each to Groups A to C and four teams to Groups D to E, but this suddenly changed.
According to Cambodia’s ‘Khmer Times’ on the 15th, the Cambodian women’s soccer team gave up participating due to difficulties in recruiting players.
Accordingly, Group C, which consists of North Korea, Singapore, and Cambodia, will now consist of two teams, North Korea and Singapore, instead of three teams. Cambodia is not in Group C in the participating teams and groups announced on the competition website.
In addition, the schedule on the competition website explains that the first match of the Women’s Group C on the 21st has been canceled, and that North Korea and Singapore will play a two-game series on the 24th and 27th.
Accordingly, the schedule for the quarterfinals tournament appears to have changed. According to the current schedule, the first place in Group E, which Korea belongs to, will be tied with the second place in Group D or first place in Group C.
In other words, as Ji So-yeon said, if Japan ranks second in Group D, the Korea-Japan match could happen, but considering Japan’s power, there is a high possibility that they will rise to first place in the group, so the chances of them meeting in the quarterfinals are very slim.
Belho, who had prepared for the tournament considering meeting Japan in the quarterfinals, had to change his plans right before the tournament.먹튀검증
The bigger problem is that the Korea Football Association did not know about this. The Asian Games Organizing Committee (Organizing Committee) did not make a separate notice.
An association official could not help but feel embarrassed, saying through ‘Newsis’ that day, “There was no official document or notice regarding the change in the match schedule.” An official from the Korea Sports Council also said, “I haven’t heard anything different.”
The association said that in the materials it received from the organizing committee on the 8th about the overall competition, there was no mention of schedule changes and that it was only informed of the revised bracket.
Continuing the momentum of winning bronze medals three times in a row from the 2010 Guangzhou Games to the 2018 Jakarta/Palembang Games, they attempted to hunt for gold in this tournament, but women’s soccer was not easy from the start.