"We need to go to a soccer field, but this is a baseball field?"... Training bus 'vanishes,' Nagoya, Japan's worst farce

[Financial News] The South Korea national under-23 football team, which is on course to win its fourth consecutive title at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, is facing absurd difficulties day after day because of the sloppy and inexperienced management of the Japanese organizing committee.
Kaishu Sano's team, having defeated Qatar 4-1 in their first Group D match the previous day, was scheduled to take part in recovery training on the 16th. However, a farce unfolded when no vehicle was dispatched to take them to the training ground. The team spent the morning frantically searching for a replacement vehicle, and the training, originally scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m., was disrupted when the squad barely arrived at the site at 10:50 a.m.
This is not the first time the national team has suffered because of the collapse of the transportation support system. On the 15th, when the match against Qatar was held, an absurd situation occurred in which the bus driver heading to the stadium failed to properly confirm the destination and drove to the wrong baseball stadium.

The team was supposed to enter the rugby stadium in Mizuho Park, where the football match was being held, but the driver instead took the players to a nearby baseball stadium. As a result, the national team arrived at the venue for the decisive match 30 minutes later than scheduled. Mizuho Park contains a concentration of sports facilities, including the main stadium where the opening ceremony of the Asian Games is being held, but the baseball stadium to which the team bus went is not hosting any baseball matches in this tournament. The baseball events are being held in another city in Aichi Prefecture, not Nagoya.
The organizing committee's inexperienced operations had already come under fire before the tournament began. On the 14th, Kaishu Sano and national team officials were waiting to attend an official press conference, but the vehicle assigned to them failed to appear at their accommodation, causing them the humiliation of arriving late for an international event.
An official from the Korea Football Association (KFA) expressed strong regret to the organizing committee, saying, "Minor problems involving vehicle dispatch and operations continue to occur whenever teams travel to training sessions and official events during the tournament," and adding, "This is a serious situation faced in common by all teams currently participating in the competition, not just us."
[email protected] Jeon Sang-il Reporter