"Dark Horse" challenge to the UAE for the Olympic finals. "Start!"

The U-23 national soccer team, led by head coach Hwang Sun-hong, will play the first Group B match of the 2024 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U-23 Asian Cup against the UAE at 0:30 a.m. on the 17th (Korea time) at Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium in Doha, Qatar.

There are 3.5 tickets for the 2024 Paris Olympics finals at stake in the competition.

If Hwang Sun-hong makes it to the top 3, he will get a direct ticket to Paris. Korean soccer is the first to advance to the Olympic finals for 10 consecutive times.

First of all, Japan, which has recently dominated South Korea, is considered the first team to be on alert in the group stage, the first gateway.

In addition, China, which plays a lot of rough plays, is also mentioned as a tough opponent.

With Hwang Sun-hong playing the second and third games against China and Japan, the first opponent, the UAE, is also a team with power that should never be ignored, so it is not expected to be an easy match.

U-23 is an age where players gain experience based on the basic skills they have honed in their youth, and their skills improve.

Whether professional or A team, the more experience they have on the adult stage, the faster their growth rate.

The UAE U-23 national team, which has many players who have already established a foothold in the A national team, is an opponent to be wary of.

Sultan Adil Al-Amiri, the main striker, has already scored five goals in 10 A matches.

In particular, the rise has been steep, with all four recent A matches in which he played, scoring goals. He tasted goals one after another in the 2023 Qatar Asian Cup held earlier this year and the 2026 North-Central America World Cup qualifying match held in March.

In addition, several players, including side defenders Bader Naser Mohammad and Zayed Sultan Aljabi, are playing as main players for the A team.

Meanwhile, Umji (Gwangju), Jeong Sang-bin (Minnesota), and Kang Sung-jin (Seoul) have only played for the A-team in the Hwangseon Red Sox. All of them are not "main competitions" for the A-team.

Bae Joon-ho (Stoke City) and Yang Hyun-joon (Celtic), who had enough adult stage experience in the professional or A national team, but whose teams did not respond to the call-up, seem to have a large vacancy.

At the West Asian Football Confederation U-23 Championship last month, which was held as a prelude to this year's Asian Football Confederation (WAFF) U-23 Championship, the UAE ranked eighth among eight participating countries with one draw and two losses. Korea won the championship.

Hwang is also 2-1 against the UAE, including his last two consecutive wins.

However, the three meetings between the WAFF U-23 Championship and the UAE were just friendly matches. The U-23 Asian Cup is the real showdown.

"The UAE has some players who are showing strong growth, so we expect it to be a very difficult match for us," soccer commentator Han Joon-hee said. "We should not focus solely on the Korea-Japan match and the Korea-China match. We should overcome the UAE, the dark horse in the first match." 먹튀검증