The under-20 (U-20) soccer team led by coach Kim Eun-joong advanced to the semifinals of the World Cup for the second time in a row.메이저놀이터
Kim Eun-ho won 1-0 after extra time in the quarterfinals against Nigeria at the ‘2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup’ held at the Santiago del Estero Stadium in Argentina on the 5th (hereinafter Korean time).
With this, Korea showed off its spirit by advancing to the semifinals for the second time in a row following the previous tournament, the 2019 Polish tournament (runner-up). In 1983, even before that, Korean football created a myth of the first semi-finals and earned the modifier ‘Red Devils’.
Now, at 6:00 am on the 9th, the national soccer team will meet Italy, a strong player representing Europe, who has beaten Colombia to reach the final.
Coach Kim Eun-joong, who had confirmed his progress to the semi-finals, said in an interview with a broadcaster after the game, “I want to say thank you to the players.”
“The players persevered well, so we got good results. amazing. I am very grateful that it seems to be the future of Korean football.”
Now the opponent in the quarterfinals is Italy.
Italy is a soccer powerhouse that has won the World Cup four times. Looking at the under-20 national team alone, he has not yet won a championship, and has recently been showing prominence, such as 3rd place in the 2017 Korean tournament and 4th place in the 2019 Polish tournament.
The record against Italy is 1 win and 1 loss for the adult national team, and 2 wins for the under-20 national team. In other words, Korean soccer flew wild whenever it met Italy’s Azuri corps.
I cannot help but discuss the 1981 World Youth Soccer Championship (now the U-20 World Cup). At the tournament held in Australia at the time, Korea created a sensation by winning 4-1 in the first match of the group stage against Italy.
As soon as the game started, Korea pushed Italy hard and literally showed overwhelming performance. At that time, the best player was Choi Soon-ho, who scored 2 goals and 2 assists, and after the tournament, he received love calls from Italian clubs.
The 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup, 21 years ago, cannot but be discussed.
Korea met Italy in the Round of 16 tournament at the World Cup held in their home country. At this time, Italy was a strong team that was aiming for the championship, and in fact played a game superior to Korea until the end of the game. However, I remember fondly that the whole country was covered in red cheers and cheers as Ahn Jung-hwan’s golden goal came out at the end of the game that went into overtime.