Korea Republic U-19 Head Coach Cho Dong Hyun. (KFA)

SEOUL – Korea Republic coach Cho Dong-hyun has voiced concern that his preparations for November’s AFC U-19 Championship may be affected by difficulties in getting his players released from their clubs.

Speaking to www.the-afc.com, Cho said: “We have ten players who play in the K-League which will make it difficult for us to call them up for training when necessary."

The Koreans have already agreed to participate in a four-team tournament in September in Japan, which features the two East Asian sides, four-time World youth champions Brazil and France, before Cho takes his team to Thailand for another international competition the following month.

“My main concern is that whether we can bring the ten K-League professional players to Japan and Thailand as this might affect our preparations for the AFC U-19 Championship,” Cho continued.

Korea Republic, who have won the Asian championship more times than any other nation, have been pooled with Iraq, the UAE, and Syria in Group B of the latest edition of the competition which Cho believes will be a closely fought affair.

“I am not really concerned about the groupings because all the participating teams are good candidates to win the competition.

“The Saudis stand a good chance because they are hosts while Japan has been very consistent in this tournament and DPR Korea are the defending champions.

“Then there are many other competitive teams like China, Australia and Iran.”

While Cho will endeavour to bring the AFC Youth Championship to Korea Republic for the 12th time he admits that the qualification to the FIFA U-20 World Cup is his first mission.

“Our first goal is to reach the quarter-finals so that we have a chance to win that match and qualify for the World Cup,” he said.

“If we reach the quarter-finals then we will have to face one of the teams in Group A [Japan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen] which is the so-called ‘group of death’.

“Probably most of the teams are concerned with reaching the World Cup which makes the quarter-finals among the most important games in the tournament.”

ENDS