Indonesia lost the 'life and death' match against South Korea, officially eliminated from the 2026 U.23 Asia

On the evening of September 9, the 0-1 loss to U.23 Korea in the final match caused U.23 Indonesia to officially be absent from the 2026 AFC U.23 Championship.

Coach Kim Sang-sik's defeated team was not successful with U.23 Indonesia.

Despite being the host country of Group J, the 2026 AFC U23 Championship qualifiers, U23 Indonesia is facing the risk of not being able to participate in the final round. The young players of "Garuda" only have 4 points after 2 matches, ranked 2nd in the group and did not even make it into the top 4 best second-place teams. Therefore, in the final round, coach Gerald Vanenburg and his team have no way back, forced to get 3 points. However, the task of U23 Indonesia is considered not easy when the opponent U23 Korea still shows fearsome strength, winning all 2 matches and scoring 12 goals.

With the goal of winning 3 points, U.23 Indonesia pushed up their formation and played offensively in the first half. Although they were rated lower than U.23 Korea, Coach Gerald Vanenburg's students completely dominated the midfield, controlling the ball by more than 60%. Unfortunately, the lack of creativity in the attack made U.23 Indonesia stuck, facing many difficulties in approaching the U.23 Korea goal. Throughout the first half, U.23 Indonesia mainly passed the ball to the 2 wings and then crossed inside, taking advantage of the aerial ability of Hokky Caraka or the naturalized striker of Dutch origin Rafael Struick. However, with the advantage in physique, the U.23 Korea defense did not have much difficulty in resolving it.

U.23 Indonesia (white shirt) played with great effort but still could not penetrate the net of U.23 Korea.

PHOTO: SCREENSHOT

On the opposite side, U.23 Korea took the initiative to play slowly after the opening whistle. The young players of the Kimchi country still showed their class in handling the ball, especially their extremely high accuracy when counter-attacking quickly. Although they did not create many scoring opportunities, after the first half, U.23 Korea still had a 1-0 advantage. Hwang Do-yun was the player who brought joy to U.23 Korea with a close-range shot, leaving the U.23 Indonesia goalkeeper rooted to the spot in the 6th minute.

In the second half, the game changed when U.23 Korea pushed up their attack formation. With many quality players, U.23 Korea attacked at full speed, many times causing the U.23 Indonesia goal to waver. In this half, U.23 Korea had 18 shots, 6 times more than what they did in the first half. Fortunately for U.23 Indonesia, goalkeeper Cahya Supriadi played excellently, not conceding any more goals.

Meanwhile, the U.23 Indonesia attack still faced many deadlocks. Despite including the naturalized striker Raven, U.23 Indonesia did not have any shots on target in the second half, accepting a 0-1 loss.

With 3 points in the match against U.23 Indonesia, U.23 Korea has 9 points after 3 matches, leading the table. JU23 Indonesia only has 4 points, ranked 2nd and officially cannot participate in the final round. This is considered a disappointing result for the young football of the archipelago country when they play at home and the Indonesian Football Federation also "invested" a lot before the qualifying matches took place.

Recently, U.23 Indonesia lost to coach Kim Sang-sik and his team in the final match of the U.23 Southeast Asian tournament.

U.23 Indonesia could not get a ticket to the finals despite playing at home.

PHOTO: SCREENSHOT

In Group D, U.23 China had a 0-0 draw with U.23 Australia. The young team from the country of a billion people has the same 7 points as U.23 Australia but has to rank 2nd because of the inferior goal difference (+11 compared to +20). However, with 7 points, the possibility of U.23 China entering the top 4 second-place teams with excellent results to win a ticket to the final round is very high.

In Group C, U.23 Japan also showed their strength when they defeated U.23 Kuwait 6-1 in the final round. This was the third win of U.23 Japan in the qualifying round, helping them top the group and win a direct ticket to the final round.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/indonesia-thua-tran-sinh-tu-truoc-han-quoc-chinh-thuc-bi-loai-khoi-u23-chau-a-2026-185250909213958075.htm