The Korean women’s soccer team has won the 2022 Asian Football Federation (AFC) Asian Cup group stage for two consecutive victories.
Korea Republic, led by coach Colin Bell (England), scored consecutive goals from Lee Geum-min (Brighton) and Ji So-yeon (Chelsea) in the second half of the 2022 AFC Women’s Asian Cup Group C Group 2 match held at Siri Sib Chhatrapati Stadium in Pune, India on the 24th. defeated Myanmar 2-0.
Korea Republic, which had won the first match 3-0 against Vietnam on the 21st, continued their 2nd win in a row, accumulating 6 points and took the lead in the group.
The defending champions Japan, who defeated Myanmar 5-0 in the first leg, will face Vietnam in the second leg tonight, so there is a possibility that the rankings will change after this match.
In this tournament, the qualification for the 2023 Australia and New Zealand Women’s World Cup is at stake.
Twelve countries will play a group stage into three groups, and the first and second place teams in each group and the two best teams from the third place will advance to the quarterfinals to determine the winner in a tournament.
Korea will play the final 3rd game of the group stage against Japan on the 27th, and this match is highly likely to be the first and second place match in Group C.
Korea, which started the game with ace So-yeon Ji on the bench, took the lead, but failed to score in the first half.
In the 16th and 20th minutes of the first half, So-Hyun Cho aimed her left footed mid-range shot in succession, but was caught by the keeper.
In the 35th minute of the first half, coach Bell operated an early replacement card that replaced Son Hwa-yeon and replaced Ji So-yeon, but the first half ended without income.
The goal came in the 5th minute of the second half.
Seo-yeon Shim’s long ball was connected by So-hyun Jo in the goal area, and Geum-min Lee, who raised her position after Hwa-yeon Son left, took the lead in the opening goal by finishing with her right foot after calm trapping.
After that, Korea continued to aim for the goal by changing Lee Min-ah (Hyundai Steel) instead of Choi Yu-ri and Park Ye-eun without Shim Seo-yeon, and Ji So-yeon scored a key goal in the 39th minute of the second half.
Ji So-yeon put her head on Kim Hye-ri’s cross that came up from the right flank, and it rubbed against the opponent and fell into the goal line.
Ji So-yeon was able to score points in two consecutive matches in this tournament, increasing the record for most goals scored by a Korean player in a match to 62 goals.
(Photo = provided by the Korea Football Association, Yonhap News)
