South Korea’s age-group national teams now have their youngest coaches.

The Korea Football Association (KFA) announced on Wednesday that it has appointed Park Yoon-jung, the current women’s national team coach, as the head coach of the women’s under-20 (U-20) national team.

Park becomes the third women’s national team head coach in history, following Hwang In-sun (former U-20) and Kim Eun-jung (current U-17), and the youngest at 34 years old, born in 1989.레모나토토

Park began her coaching career at Yeoju University in 2016 after playing for Seoul City Hall in the WK League, Chungbuk Sports (now Sejong Sports) and Albirex Niigata in Japan. After coaching her alma mater, Pohang Women’s High School, she became a full-time coach at the Korea Football Association in 2019. She went on to coach the women’s U-17 and U-20 national teams, which reached the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in 2022.

Since December last year, Park has been the head coach of the Women’s A team, led by Colleen Bell, which competed at the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Park will serve as both the U-20 and A team coach.

With Park’s appointment, the U-20 Women’s National Team will set its sights on qualifying for the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Colombia next September. To qualify for the World Cup, the team will need to finish in the top three at the AFC U-20 Women’s Asian Cup in Uzbekistan next March. “Previous coaches Ko Hyun-bok, Kim Dae-hwan, goalkeeping coach, and Lee Ji-sung, physical coach, will assist Park,” the federation said.

Meanwhile, the women’s U-20 team will hold its first call-up training at the National Training Center (NFC) in Paju from June 6 to 9. The initial roster includes 31 players under the age of 19, including Bae Ye-bin (Widok University), who was named to the final roster for the 2023 Women’s World Cup, and Kim Se-yeon (Chungju Yesung Girls’ High School), who recently participated in the Paris Olympic Qualifiers.

The team will reconvene on Nov. 24 to reduce the squad to 22 players and will train in Uzbekistan until Dec. 4. The team will play two friendly matches against the Uzbekistan Women’s U-20 National Team on Nov. 30 and Dec. 3.