‘I can no longer remain a paper tiger!’Korean soccer, seeking to regain its pride as an ‘Asian leader’, is taking on a ‘great challenge’ from the beginning of the new year in 2024 to lift the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup trophy for the first time in 64 years.The Korean national soccer team, led by coach Jurgen Klinsmann, will be playing in Doha (Khalifa International Stadium, Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium, Assumama Stadium, Jassim bin Hamad Stadium), Lusail (Lusail Stadium) from the 13th to February 11th, Korean time. They will participate in the 2023 AFC Asian Cup held in 9 stadiums in 5 cities in Qatar, including Al Khor (Al Bayt Stadium), Al Rayyan (Education City Stadium, Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium), and Al Wakrah (Al Janoub Stadium). The opening match is the first match of Group A between the host nation, Qatar, and Lebanon, at 1 a.m. on the 13th, Korean time.

The Asian Cup, now in its 18th year, is the best football festival held in AFC member countries every four years, starting with the first competition in 1956.The first to third competitions were small, with only four countries participating, but the number of participating countries increased to 16 from the 2004 Lebanon competition, and from the 2019 United Arab Emirates (UAE) competition, the competition system changed to 24 countries.The total prize money is $14.8 million (about 19.5 billion won), with $5 million (about 6.6 billion won) to the winning team, $3 million (about 4 billion won) to the runner-up team, and $1 million (about 1.32 billion won) to the semifinalist team. ) returns.All 24 countries that advance to the finals will receive $20,000 (264 million won).Video referee (VAR), which was first introduced in the 2019 competition, has also been upgraded to the next level.

Starting with this tournament, AFC will introduce semi-automatic offside reading technology (SAOT), which was applied to the 2022 Qatar World Cup.Twelve special cameras installed in the stadium detect the position of the ball and the player’s limbs and body to determine whether or not the player is offside, and if offside, the VAR referee is immediately notified. Korean soccer has achieved outstanding results on the international stage, including reaching the semifinals of the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup, a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics, and winning six championships, the most in men’s soccer history at the Asian Games.However, when it came to the Asian Cup, they were like ‘paper tigers’.

Korea has won the Asian Cup twice in history (1956 and 1960), when there were only four participating teams.Since then, they have finished second place four times (1972, 1980, 1988, 2015) and third place four times (1964, 2000, 2007, 2011).Compared to Japan, the biggest rival on the Asian stage, who won the championship four times (1992, 2000, 2004, and 2011), there is bound to be some disappointment.Korea, which lost the championship trophy to Australia after overtime in the finals of the 2015 tournament, was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the 2019 tournament and was 카지노사이트킹 evaluated as having regressed.