Women's nat'l football team to hold final camp ahead of Olympic qualifiers

▲ In this Nov. 24, 2020, file photo provided by the Korea Football Association, members of the South Korean women's national football team train at Busan Asiad Main Stadium in Busan, 450 kilometers southeast of Seoul. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

▲ In this file photo from Oct. 26, 2020, Colin Bell, head coach of the South Korean women's national football team, watches his players in action against the under-20 women's national team in an exhibition match at Paju Stadium in Paju, Gyeonggi Province. (Yonhap)

Olympics-football

Women's nat'l football team to hold final camp ahead of Olympic qualifiers

By Yoo Jee-ho

SEOUL, Jan. 11 (Yonhap) -- The South Korean women's national football team will open its final training camp ahead of the Olympic qualifiers next week.

The Korea Football Association (KFA) announced Monday that the women's team, coached by Colin Bell, will report to camp in Gangjin, 410 kilometers south of Seoul in South Jeolla Province, next Monday. Bell will call up 26 players from the domestic WK League, while overseas-based players currently in the middle of their seasons will not be brought home.

The 26 players will train in Gangjin through Feb. 10 and then relocate farther south to Jeju Island for the second phase from Feb. 11 to 18. It will be the first camp for the women's team since November in Busan.

South Korea will face China in a two-legged playoff round for a spot at the Tokyo Olympics. Jeju will host the first leg on Feb. 19, and the next match will be in Suzhou, China, on Feb. 24. The aggregate score will determine the winner.

Women's football joined the Olympics in 1996, and South Korea, dubbed the Taeguk Ladies, have never qualified for the event.

The playoff series, initially scheduled for February last year, has been postponed multiple times due to effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The Olympic Games themselves have been pushed back from July 2020 to July this year.

South Korea are ranked 18th in the world, three spots below China. In 37 all-time meetings, South Korea have four wins, six draws and 27 losses against China.

For the upcoming camp, Ji So-yun, South Korea's all-time leading scorer playing for Chelsea FC Women, will be among the veterans missing. Coach Bell will instead have a long look at WK League stars who have been national team mainstays, including forward Jang Sel-gi, the 2020 KFA Female Player of the Year; midfielder Lee Min-a; and former under-20 national team star Chu Hyo-ju.

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