South Korea Announces Venues for Upcoming Men's Football Friendlies

By Yoo Jee-ho SEOUL, Aug. 18 (Yonhap) -- The national football federation on Tuesday announced the venues for the four upcoming men's friendly matches on home soil, with four different cities set to take turns serving as the host. The Korea Football Association (KFA) said the cities of Suwon, Seoul, Ulsan and Yongin will host the four friendlies during the September-October FIFA international match window. All matches will kick off at 8 p.m. Opponents for these matches were announced July 28 and Aug. 5. On Sept. 24, South Korea, ranked 32nd, will host 25th-ranked Ecuador at Suwon World Cup Stadium in Suwon, some 35 kilometers south of Seoul in Gyeonggi Province. It will be Suwon's first men's senior international match since March 2025. Then on Sept. 28, South Korea will face world No. 20 Uruguay at Seoul World Cup Stadium, the first men's international contest to be held in the capital since November. Venezuela, ranked 47th, will visit South Korea on Oct. 2 at Munsu Football Stadium in Ulsan, some 310 kilometers southeast of Seoul. Ulsan last hosted an international match in March 2023. Four days later on Oct. 6, it will be South Korea against 60th-ranked Uzbekistan at Yongin Mireu Stadium in Yongin, another Gyeonggi Province city located about 40 kilometers south of the capital. Yongin Mireu last saw international football as the host of the East Asian Football Federation E-1 Championship in July 2025. These will be the first men's friendly matches held in South Korea this year. A caretaker manager will be in charge of these four matches, plus two matches scheduled between Nov. 9 and 17. Former head coach Hong Myung-bo stepped down in late June in the immediate aftermath of South Korea's elimination from the group stage at the FIFA World Cup. The KFA plans to interview five finalists this week to find an interim manager. It has said it will try to name an interim boss before the end of August.