On the 23rd, the Korean Professional Football League (KPFL) announced that the K-League's schedule for the 22nd to 25th rounds of the tournament will be adjusted in order to ensure the strength of the Korean national team in the East Asian Cup.
The East Asian Cup will kick off July 19-27 in Japan. The restructuring of the tournament will give South Korea's head coach Paulo Bento the opportunity to put together an adult team of top K-League players for the East Asian Cup. With the absence of overseas players Son and Hwang Hee-chan, the South Korean squad will consist mainly of Korean players from the K-League and other Asian leagues. Sun Junho, who plays for Shandong Taishan in the Chinese Super League, and Jiang Xiangyou of Beijing Guoan are among the names on the list, and although they have yet to confirm their selection, the tournament may be a key examination for Paulo Bento to determine the final roster of the South Korean team for the International Cup.
According to the East Asian Cup schedule, South Korea's first match is against China. The Chinese team will send the U23 national football team to participate in the tournament, and although there is no specific performance requirement, this team is still tasked with the responsibility of fighting for the honor of the tournament for the Chinese men's football team, given the poor performance of the Chinese men's football team in recent years in various tournaments. From this perspective, the players are also well aware of the importance of playing well in the East Asian Cup.
It is reported that Yankovic, the head coach of the U23 national football team, has returned to Beijing last week. Before that, he had been in Haikou to observe the players' performance for a long time. Next, he will determine the candidates for the East Asian Cup as soon as possible based on his findings. The original plan was to recruit three overage players from the national soccer team, Wu Xi, Zhang Linpeng and Zhang Yuning, to join the U23 national soccer team in order to help the team to fight for the East Asian Cup. However, with the postponement of the Hangzhou Asian Games, the East Asian Cup has become an international warm-up tournament of practical significance this year. Therefore, whether or not to call up the overage players is still to be discussed between manager Jankovic and the FA side.
In addition, the East Asian Cup is a FIFA-certified A-level tournament. If the U23 national football team performs poorly in this tournament, China's international ranking points will continue to decline. It is important to realize that in the FIFA rankings released yesterday, the Chinese team has fallen out of the top ten in Asia and dropped to 78th in the international rankings, a new low in nearly four years. Facing the local elite players of South Korea and Japan, the pressure faced by the U23 national soccer team, which is playing small against big, will also be very huge.
