Women’s national soccer team head coach Colleen Bell has quickly called up her players to prepare for the 2024-2025 season, which will not feature any major competitions.

Bell began training on the afternoon of the 27th at the Gyeonggi Paju National Training Center (NFC).

In this call-up, which will last until the 3rd of next month, the national team will train without any evaluation games to prepare for the next evaluation game scheduled for the end of February next year and improve their organization.

As it is the A-match period, overseas players have also joined Paju NFC.

Coach Bell met with reporters before the afternoon training session and said, “This is important in that it is a training session to prepare for the training at the beginning of next year,” and defined it as “a preparation period for better performance in 2024 and 2025.”

Coach Bell, who uses training instead of trials to solidify tactics and organization, said, “We tried to hold a trial, but it was canceled due to various details. However, during the call-up period, we will work on tactics as well as the details of the offense and careful coaching of young players.”

“After the 2023 FIFA World Cup Australia-New Zealand, there were important tournaments such as the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou and the second qualifying round for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, but we did not achieve much,” he said, adding, “We will learn from this year and focus on building a better team.”

Bell, who took over the reins of the Korean Women’s National Team in October 2019, believes that with no major international tournaments for the foreseeable future, it’s time for a generational change in the A team.

“The current main players will be aging by the 2027 World Cup, so I called up a lot of new players,” Bell said. “If we continue to call them up next year and the year after, and they improve their skills and play good teams, I think we can do well in the next World Cup.”

However, he once again pointed out the lack of foundation and system in Korean women’s soccer.

“We need to transfuse young blood,” Bell said, “and we want to create an environment where young players can improve their skills when they come out of college and go to the WK League.

“If you look at women’s soccer powerhouses, they either have really strong domestic leagues or most of their main players are playing in the top leagues,” he said. “I think Korea is afraid of that change. As a coach, I have a desire to reach a higher level, but it requires collaboration with various stakeholders.”

“In addition to short-term tournaments such as the World Cup, Asian Games, and Asian Cup, good players can continue to develop if they are supported by regular call-ups.”

In addition to coaching the Women’s A team, Bell will be in constant communication with Park Yoon-jung, who is also in charge of the U-20 team, to help develop prospects into key players.

“I’m open to traveling with the U-20s if the call-ups don’t overlap,” Bell said. The younger guys, like Casey Eugene Fair (Independent), are obviously on the age-group squads as well, so we’ll continue to talk to Park,” Bell said.

“We’re going to continue to monitor the good players to make sure they don’t get lost in the shuffle, and we’re going to work on improving their skills,” Bell said, adding that his biggest motivation as head coach is to make sure the women’s team is of the highest quality and performs well.

The first 20 minutes of training, which began at 4 p.m., were open to the media.

Prior to the training, it had been drizzling with winter rain in the morning, which further reduced the temperature in Paju, but despite the chilly weather, the players were in good spirits as they began their first training session.

A total of 21 players took the field, including Ji So-yeon (Suwon FC) and Kim Hye-ri (Hyundai Steel).

Lee Young-joo (Madrid CFF), Lim Sun-joo (Hyundai Steel), who was called up by Bell, and Lee Jung-min (Mungyeong Sangmu), who took the place of Kang Chae-rim (Hyundai Steel) due to swelling in her right knee, will join the team on the 27th and 28th.

The players ran a couple of laps around the stadium in a row, and Coach Bell ran with them and joked with them.

After warming up with stretches, the team divided into groups of eight and 10, excluding the three goalkeepers, and practiced passing the ball with Sulae in the center. 메이저사이트