S. Korean women open training camp for East Asian football tournament

All News 12:57 July 06, 2022

By Yoo Jee-ho

PAJU, South Korea, July 6 (Yonhap) -- The South Korean women's national football team began preparing for an upcoming regional tournament Wednesday, with an eye toward ending a 17-year title drought.

South Korea will compete in the East Asian Football Federation (EAFF) E-1 Women's Football Championship this month. They will face Japan on July 19, China on July 23 and Chinese Taipei on July 26. The team with the best record after round-robin action will be declared the champions.

Members of the South Korean women's national football team train at the National Football Center in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, on July 6, 2022, in this photo provided by the Korea Football Association. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

Head coach Colin Bell gathered 23 players at the National Football Center (NFC) in Paju, some 30 kilometers north of Seoul. He'd named a 24-player squad last Thursday but forward Moon Mi-ra was dropped on Tuesday after testing positive for COVID-19. She will not be replaced.

Bell was able to secure the release of two Europe-based players in Tottenham Hotspur FC Women midfielder Cho So-hyun and Madrid CFF defender Lee Young-ju.

Because the EAFF tournament isn't part of the FIFA international calendar, clubs aren't obligated to release their international players.

This will be the eighth edition of the EAFF tournament, and the Taeguk Ladies won the inaugural competition in 2005 as the hosts. They were the runners-up to Japan in 2019, also on home soil.

"We always want to win every game. That's the attitude," Bell told reporters after Wednesday's training session. "We know that's maybe not possible. But that is the attitude, the expectation that we always prepare to win every single game."

Colin Bell, head coach of the South Korean women's national football team, speaks to reporters at the National Football Center in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, on July 6, 2022, in this photo provided by the Korea Football Association. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

The coach also highlighted the importance of fitness and conditioning, saying his players have tended to lose focus in late moments of matches and that has to change going forward.

"We have to increase the intensity of training and the intensity of the games at this level. Otherwise, we cannot compete at the highest level," he said. "We need the competition against these top teams to prove to ourselves that we are capable of competing, which we are. But we also have to start winning these games. But we can only win these games when we bring ourselves up to the next fitness level."

jeeho@yna.co.kr
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