The Korea Football Association announced that the middle school girls’ selection team will participate in the ‘Nike Premier Cup International Youth Soccer Tournament’ to be held in Beaverton, Oregon, USA, starting on the 22nd (local time).
The Nike Premier Cup is an international youth club competition hosted by Nike Global. Previously, only men’s competitions were held, but as global interest in women’s soccer increased and its base expanded, a new women’s competition was established starting this year.
The women’s game will be held from the 22nd to the 28th with 12 teams participating. The teams are divided into three groups of four each, and the two best-performing teams among the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams in each group advance to the quarterfinals and play a tournament to determine the winner. The game will be played for a total of 50 minutes, with 25-minute halves. Depending on the group composition decided on the 21st, group matches will be played every day from the 22nd to the 24th.
The 12 participating teams are elite women’s club teams from each country invited by Nike Global. In addition to the host country, the United States, Spain, Germany, England, Italy, Sweden, Brazil, Mexico, Ghana, Australia, and Japan will participate. The Korea Football Association paid great attention to revitalizing women’s soccer in Korea and decided to allow middle school teams to participate in consultation with Nike Korea, which sponsored participation in this tournament.
The participating players were selected jointly by the Korea Football Association and the Women’s Football Federation based on their performance at the Queen’s National Women’s Football Tournament held in Hapcheon, Gyeongsangnam-do last June. Six students were selected from the winner of the Queen’s Middle School Division, Ulsan Hyundai Cheongwoon Middle School, four students were selected from the runner-up team, Chungju Yesung Girls’ Middle School, and three students each were selected from the semifinalists Jinju Girls’ Middle School and Icheon Seolbong Middle School.
Coach Kim Gwang-seok of Hyundai Cheongwoon Middle School and Coach Seo Eun-ji of Yesung Girls’ Middle School lead the team as managers and coaches. The list of 16 participating players also included Han Hee Han (Hyundai Chungwoon Middle School), who played for the U-17 team in the last AFC U-17 Women’s Asian Cup.
### Female middle school selection team list (16 people)
GK: Joy (Chungju Yesung Girls’ Middle School), Seungah Lee (Ulsan Hyundai Cheongwoon Middle School)
DF: Kim Ra-on, Chu Ji-yeon (Ulsan Hyundai Cheongwoon Middle School), Kim Min-seo (Chungju Yesung Girls’ Middle School), Jang So-young (Icheon Seolbong Middle School)
MF: Min-Chae Kim, Hee Han (Ulsan Hyundai Cheongwoon Middle School), Ji-Eun Kim, A-Young Jang (Icheon Seolbong Middle School), Ji-Eun Park (Chungju Yesung Girls’ Middle School), Se-Eun Choi (Jinju Girls’ Middle School)
FW: Eunseo Kim (Ulsan Hyundai Cheongwoon Middle School), Seoyoung Baek, Eunjae Ha (Jinju Girls’ Middle School), Seoyeon Choi (Chungju Yesung Girls’ Middle School)
KFA News Team
Photo = Kang Ji-won