Colin Belho, who is aiming for his first Olympic final, kept his hopes of qualifying for the 2024 Paris Olympics alive by drawing with difficult enemy North Korea. However, North Korea, a powerhouse in women’s soccer, was placed in one group of the Asian regional preliminaries, so it faced a difficult schedule in which it had to win at all costs against world power China (15th in FIFA rankings).
The Korean women’s national soccer team (ranked 20th) drew 0-0 with North Korea in the second match of Group B of the 2024 Paris Olympics Asian second qualifying round held at the Xiamen Egret Stadium in Fujian Province, China on the 29th. Even in Group B of the ‘Group of Death’, they won 1 valuable point against North Korea, which was evaluated as a strong force, accumulating 4 points (1 win, 1 draw, goal difference +9), and maintained the lead in the group. A month ago, the quarterfinals of the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games proved that they would not have lost 1-4 if it were not for the numerical inferiority due to the referee’s unclear decision.
However, the road to the Paris Olympics finals is still difficult. Only by winning the 3rd and final match against China on the 1st can we be assured of advancing to the final round. Even if they draw with powerhouse China and end up with 1 win and 2 draws, there is a very high possibility that they will be eliminated at the threshold of the final qualifying round due to group composition.
In this second preliminary round, only the first-place team from three groups and the team with the best performance among the second-place teams from each group advance to the final preliminary round. Group A’s second-place Philippines (44th) and Group C’s second-place Uzbekistan (50th) are defeated by underdog Iran (50th). 63rd) and India (61st) will meet in the final match of the second qualifying round. These are two teams whose power is evaluated as one level below Korea’s, but if even one team wins the final match, their record will be 2 wins and 1 loss, and they will be able to advance to the final preliminary round, beating Korea, who only had 1 win and 2 draws. Previously, the Philippines lost 0-8 to Australia (11th place), and Uzbekistan lost 0-2 to Japan (8th place).
It is because of North Korea that South Korea has been forced into a situation where it must unconditionally defeat China. North Korea does not have a FIFA ranking because it has not participated in international competitions since the COVID-19 pandemic. Regardless of their actual strength, they were assigned the lowest seed during the second preliminary round draw, turning Group B into the Group of Death.카지노사이트
Women’s soccer’s path to the Olympics has not been easy in the past due to its structure. As for the women’s national team, Team A also participates in the Olympics, but with only 12 participating teams, only 2 tickets are allocated to Asia. There are many teams in Asia that could advance to the round of 16 of the Women’s World Cup, including Korea, Australia, Japan, China, and North Korea. Korea advanced to the final Asian qualifiers for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but lost to China with 1 draw and 1 loss after conceding an overtime goal in the second game.