The WAFF U-23 Championship will take place in Dammam, Saudi Arabia from July 18 to 26. Olympic teams from eight countries, including Korea, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Iraq, Australia, Thailand, and Egypt, will participate. 메이저사이트
Each team will play three times in the tournament. The tournament will be held in the quarterfinals, but winners and losers will compete to determine the rankings from first to eighth place.
Korea will play its first match against Thailand on June 20. Depending on the result of the match against Thailand, the team will play the winner or loser of the Saudi Arabia-Jordan match on June 23, and will have a final ranking match on June 26.
The roster will be announced on Friday when the national team's roster will be announced. The Olympic team will be called up at Incheon International Airport on Thursday night and depart for Saudi Arabia.
Head coach Myung Jae-yong will lead the team in the WAFF U-23 Championship, as Hwang Sun-hong will be the interim coach of the A national team for the second consecutive round of the 2026 North-China World Cup Asian qualifiers against Thailand. Hwang Hee-hoon, a former coach of the Korea Football Association, will join the Olympic team as a goalkeeper coach during the tournament on behalf of Kim Il-jin, who will serve as a temporary goalkeeper coach for the national team.
The final preparatory camp and training schedule have also been confirmed ahead of the final qualifying round for the Paris Olympics and the U-23 Asian Cup to be held in Qatar in April. The Olympic team will meet again in Korea on April 2 after confirming its final entry after the WAFF U-23 Championship. It will depart for the UAE on April 5 for training in Dubai, where it will conduct its final training session with the Middle East team on April 9. It will enter Doha, where the final preliminary round will take place, on April 10.
Sixteen teams will participate in the final preliminary round of Asian qualifiers for the Paris Olympics, and the top three teams will advance to the Olympic finals. The fourth place winners will have to play against the fourth place team in African qualifiers. Korea belongs to Group B and will play against the UAE on June 16, China on June 19 and Japan on June 22.