Celtic star Yang Hyun-jun appears to be fit following a hamstring issue that has plagued him during his Asian Games campaign. The winger was selected as one of the wildcard picks for the competition, which is an under-23s competition aside from each team's three wildcard picks.
Yang will have offered some key leadership for his young teammates, but he hasn't been able to provide as much on the pitch as he would have liked due to a hamstring complaint. He has had a couple of press appearances where he said he feels bad about his lack of contribution as one of the senior players.
But he did return to the bench on Wednesday as South Korea took on China in the semi-finals of the competition. The Celtic star did not feature, though, remaining an unused substitute, likely due to his recent return.
Bae- Hyun-Ho and Lee Young-jun were on the scoresheet in a 2-1 win, setting up a final against Japan, who are the other favourites for the competition. South Korea have won the last three versions of this competition, and they will be the favourites for the final.
Should they win, South Korea's players will be able to avoid the nation's mandatory military service, which is an extra motivation that will have helped them along the way.
South Korea boss Lee Min-sung said after the game: “We were expecting a difficult match, and our players persevered. I’m satisfied with the way they overcame the early deficit. We have one more match to play, and we will try to recover and be ready for the match.”
On going behind, he added: “Something like that can happen in a match, and our job is to make sure we don’t repeat the same mistake.”
On not playing Yang, he added: “No matter how important a competition is, our priority is to protect players if they are not 100 percent healthy. We are borrowing these players from their clubs for the national team, and we have to return them in good health."
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