By Donghoon Kang = The national soccer team, led by coach Jürgen Klinsmann, will travel to Europe in September. The first opponent will be Wales. It will be the first time since March 2018 (Northern Ireland-Poland) that the national team will play an away match against a local country in Europe.
The Korea Football Association (KFA) announced on Sept. 29 that it has agreed with the Football Association of Wales (FAW) to play a friendly match against Wales on Sept. 7. “The venue is Cardiff City Stadium in Wales, and the time of the match is still to be determined,” it added.
The match against Wales is the first of two matches in the September A-match window set by Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). The second match is yet to be determined. The team is looking for a country from another continent as most European nations play European Championship qualifiers during this period.
This will be the first time the team has ever faced Wales in an A-match. The Welsh are currently ranked one spot higher at 26th. The Welsh made their first appearance at the World Cup in 64 years last year in Qatar, but were knocked out in the group stages after a 1-1 draw and two losses, showing the high barriers of world football. 스포츠토토
However, the Welsh have done well at the European Championships in recent years, with two upsets. In fact, Wales reached the semifinals in 2016 after defeating Belgium in the quarterfinals, and in 2021, they survived a stiff competition in Group A with Turkey, Italy, and Switzerland to reach the round of 16.
Former world stars Ryan Giggs and Gareth Bale are now part of the Welsh squad, along with Ben Davies, who is familiar to local fans as Son’s Tottenham Hotspur teammate, Aaron Ramsey, who made a name for himself at Arsenal, and Daniel James, who played for Manchester United.