'Housekeeping for Two' head coach Hwang Sun-hong confirmed the Olympic team's schedule
The Olympic team will first participate as an invited team in the West Asian Football Confederation (WAFF) U-23 Championship during the A-match in March. The WAFF U-23 Championship will be held in Dammam, Saudi Arabia from the 18th to the 26th. Olympic teams from eight countries, including Korea, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Iraq, Australia, Thailand, and Egypt, will participate. Each team will play three matches in total. It will be held in the quarterfinal tournament format, and winners and losers will play each other 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 have the final ranking match on June 26. The roster will be announced on Wednesday 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. As Hwang Sun-hong will serve as the interim coach of the national team for the second consecutive World Cup qualifiers against Thailand, assistant coach Myung Jae-yong will lead the team for the WAFF U-23 Championship. In addition, Hwang Hee-hoon, 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 for the final qualifying round for the Paris Olympics and the U-23 Asian Cup to be held in Qatar in April have also been confirmed. After returning home after the WAFF U-23 Championship, the Olympic team will convene again in Korea on April 2 after confirming its final entry. It will depart for the UAE on April 5 for training in Dubai, where it will conduct its final training session in a practice match against the Middle East team there on April 9. They will enter Doha, where the final preliminary round will take place, on April 10. Sixteen teams will participate in the final Asian qualifying round for the Paris Olympics, and the top three teams will advance directly to the Olympic finals. The fourth place will have to play against the fourth place team in the African qualifying round. Korea belongs to Group B and will play against the UAE on June 16, China on June 19 and Japan on June 22.