“The fact that our opponent is Japan is reason enough to win.”
The South Korean Asian Games team, led by Hwang Sun-hong, will face Japan in the final of the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games at the Huanglong Sports Center Stadium in Hangzhou, China on Sunday (June 7).
After going undefeated through three group stage matches, the Koreans reached the Round of 16 with wins over Kyrgyzstan, China and Uzbekistan. With just one game left to win the gold medal, the Koreans will face their nemesis, Japan.
On the sixth day before the game, the team gathered at the Huanglong Sports Center Auxiliary Stadium to train.
Prior to the training session, Seol Young-woo met with the media for an interview.
“Since we came to China, all the players, all the coaching staff, and the support staff have been united, and we have won a lot of games and suffered a lot to get here. Our last game is, as we all expected, against Japan and Korea. No matter how much we think about it, there are too many reasons to win, and we are preparing well with the confidence that we can win unconditionally. We will go for the gold medal unconditionally,” he said.
Seol Young-woo added, “I think there are many reasons, but the opponent is Japan. That alone is enough reason for us to win unconditionally,” he said.
This is a squad that has played many games in a short period of time. “I think the best thing about our team is that it doesn’t really make a difference who’s out there or who’s playing. I think we rotated really well from the preliminary round, and the result was the same in the quarterfinals, where we felt we had a little more energy than our opponents,” said Seol.
“I think it will be the same in the final, so I don’t think there’s any problem with physical fitness,” he said.
This time around, Japan had 10 of its 22 players, nearly half of them university students. But they’re not letting their guard down. “As a team, tactically, we’ve been working out today, and tomorrow we’ll have a meeting, and our analyst has sent us videos of our opponents. We talk about how young they are, but we don’t think about that at all.”
Seol Young-woo added, “Japan’s style of play is very passing and everyone has good fundamentals. I think they will play the exact opposite of Uzbekistan. We’ve seen a lot of Japanese soccer and know a lot about it, so we have to prepare well for that,” he said, adding that he has a good grasp of the game.
“I don’t think I actually remember playing against Japan in the national team. Speaking of Japan, I only remember meeting them at the ACL,” he said, adding, “Even then, just the fact that they were my opponent raised my fighting spirit a lot and I wanted to win unconditionally.”
Seol Young-woo continued, “I want to win something even more than when we met in the team, because we met again at such a crucial time with a flag on our chests. It’s the final, so it’s either silver or gold. I can’t imagine losing to Japan, and I don’t want to. I’m thinking about winning no matter what,” he said, adding that he is only thinking about winning 토토사이트.
He continued, “All the players came here with the idea that ‘we have to be number one or nothing’. As you all know, I’m thinking that if we don’t finish first, there’s no point in this tournament to be honest. I don’t think there’s any other way to win.”
“I was actually selected as a wild card, and now that I’m here, I joined the team later than my friends, so I always feel a little bit sorry for myself,” said Seol.
Seol Young-woo continued, “It’s true that I had a lot of feelings that I couldn’t get along with the team’s tactics or the players on the team because I didn’t live with them much, but now I’ve gotten to this point because we’re all good together. I think I’ve experienced the big stage a little bit more than they have because I’ve played for the A team. Tomorrow is a big game, so I think there will definitely be some parts where the players will be stiff, and I think I need to give them a lot of positive words and instill a lot of confidence that they can do well,” he said, vowing to take on the role of wild card and older brother.
The last match against Uzbekistan was much rougher than expected. Uhm Won-sang had to deal with a sprained ankle. On the day of the match, Uhm Won-sang was fortunate to be on the training field.
“I think it was a bit rougher than I expected, but I think our players played a lot of cleverly rather than being really sick. Overall, (Um) Won-sang is the only one we have to wait and see. I actually have a shoulder that keeps coming out, and it came out in that match, so I think I’ll be fine. All the players are in good shape,” he said.
In the last edition of the tournament, Korea and Japan battled to extra time in the final. Seol said, “I’m thinking about finishing in 90 minutes. We haven’t gone to overtime once in this tournament. Actually, we played better than we thought we would, and we got all the good results. The confidence is really good. We don’t want to let that confidence turn into complacency, but we want to control ourselves as much as possible and finish the game in 90 minutes,” he said.
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