Casey Phair, a half-Korean teenage forward, was named to the South Korean national football team for the upcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup on Wednesday.
At the National Football Center in Paju, some 40 kilometers northwest of Seoul, head coach Colin Bell unveiled his 23-player roster for the July 20-Aug. 20 tournament, co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, along with two reserves.
Phair, born to an American father and a Korean mother in the United States, is the first player of mixed descent to make the senior South Korean women’s national football squad.
Phair had a star turn for South Korea in April in the qualifiers for the 2024 Asian Football Confederation U-17 Women’s Asian Cup. She grabbed a brace in South Korea’s 16-0 rout of Tajikistan, and then scored a hat trick to help South Korea beat Hong Kong 12-0.
Phair had been training with the Players Development Academy in New Jersey before earning a callup to Bell’s World Cup training camp late last month.
At 16, Phair is also the youngest player to represent South Korea at a World Cup.
“I feel really proud and honored to be given this opportunity,” Phair said. “And I’m ready and willing to do whatever it takes to help the country.”
Bell said Phair earned her place on the team with her performance.
“She’s selected because I think she can help the team now, like every other player,” Bell said. “She is going not as a passenger but as a valuable member of the squad.”
Goalkeeper Kim Jung-mi is the oldest South Korean player ever at a World Cup, having earned her third selection at age 38.
She is one of five members on the current team with at least 100 international caps, led by midfielders Ji So-yun and Cho So-hyun, tied for the most appearances with 144 apiece.
The group also includes forward Park Eun-seon, who made her World Cup debut in 2003 as a 16-year-old.
Of Bell’s 23 players, 14 have prior World Cup experience.
South Korea will host Haiti at 5 p.m. Saturday at Seoul World Cup Stadium for their final tuneup match at home before traveling Down Under.
South Korea will open Group H action against Colombia on July 25, followed by Morocco on July 30 and Germany on Aug. 3.
Bell said his focus remains on the opening match and he won’t look past Colombia.
“I always work the same way. I take it step by step,” he said. “The focus remains on the first match versus Colombia. That’s all that matters: beat Colombia and everything else, we’ll see.”
Bell called Colombia “a very aggressive, very physical team” with notable progress over the past couple of years.
The coach also wants to see his players let their action on the field do the talking.
“We can talk a lot about what I want to do. But we have to do it on the pitch. For me, I want to see actions,” he said. “I can spend the whole morning talking about what I want to do. But the players have to do it on the pitch. That’s all that I am interested in. The truth is on the pitch.”
Bell said his team will travel to Australia on Monday, and the team will start training there next Wednesday.
While in Australia, South Korea will play a scrimmage against the Netherlands behind closed doors on July 16.
This is South Korea’s fourth appearance at the Women’s World Cup. They’ve been to the knockout stage once, reaching the round of 16 in Canada in 2015.
Source: Yonhap News Agency