South Korea national under-20 football team

Korea Republic U-20

Nickname(s)	Taegeuk Warriors The Red Devils Tiger of Asia
Association	Korea Football Association
Confederation	AFC (Asia)
Sub-confederation	EAFF (East Asia)
Head coach	Kim Eun-jung
FIFA code	KOR
First colours Second colours
First international
South Korea 2–0 Thailand  (Kuala Lumpur, Malaya; 19 April 1959)
Biggest win
South Korea 28–0 Guam  (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; 6 November 2007)
Biggest defeat
Brazil 10–3 South Korea  (Kuching, Malaysia; 22 June 1997)
FIFA U-20 World Cup
Appearances	15 (first in 1979)
Best result	Runners-up (2019)
AFC U-20 Asian Cup
Appearances	38 (first in 1959)
Best result	Champions (1959, 1960, 1963, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1990, 1996, 1998, 2002, 2004, 2012)

The South Korea national under-20 football team (Korean: 대한민국 20세 이하 축구 국가대표팀; recognized as Korea Republic by FIFA) represents South Korea in international youth football competitions and also can be managed as under-18 or under-19 team if necessary. South Korean under-20 team won twelve AFC U-20 Asian Cup (AFC Youth Championship) titles and reached the FIFA U-20 World Cup final once, both are the most successful results among Asian teams.

South Korea's under-19 team, which finished third in the qualifying tournament, was initially ineligible to play in the final stage of the 1982 AFC Youth Championship. However, the North Korean FA was punished with a two-year suspension for assaulting a referee at the 1982 Asian Games by the Asian Football Confederation, so South Korea advanced to the final stage instead of North Korea, the runners-up.^[1] After winning the tournament, South Korea qualified for the 1983 FIFA World Youth Championship as Asian champions. Manager Park Jong-hwan trained his team with tactics that demanded a lot of endurance and teamwork for the World Youth Championship.^[2]

Drawn in a group with Scotland, Australia and the host Mexico, South Korea lost their first game against Scotland, but they advanced to the knockout stage by defeating the other two teams. In the quarter-finals, they faced Uruguay, and won the game 2–1 with two extra time goals by Shin Yon-ho. The news that they reached the semi-finals for the first time in a FIFA competition became a myth in South Korea,^[3] a weak country in sports at the time, although it was a youth competition. The foreign press was also interested in South Korea's achievement, describing it as the "Red Fury".^[4][5] South Korea finished the tournament in fourth place after losing to Brazil and Poland,^[6] and South Korean defender Kim Pan-keun was named in the official All-Star Team.^[7] The name of "Red Devils", the supporters' group for the South Korean national team, was inspired by this story.^[8]

The Inter-Korean Sports Conferences were held on the recommendation of the International Olympic Committee since 1963, but the conferences always broke down until the 1980s because both sides had not seen eye to eye. In February 1991, however, they decided to make Korean unified teams in table tennis and football.^[9] In that same year, both South and North qualified for the FIFA World Youth Championship as winners and runners-up of the 1990 AFC Youth Championship, so they urgently made allied under-20 football team for the world championship despite concerns about communication and teamwork.^[10] Their challenge was ended in the quarter-finals.

The following is a list of match results in the last 12 months, as well as any future matches that have been scheduled.

  Win0   Draw0   Loss0   Fixture

South Korea entered annual AFC Youth Championship from 1959 to 1976 excluding the 1975 tournament and the youth matches of those days were played for 80 minutes.

The FIFA World Youth Championship was founded in 1977 and the AFC Youth Championship became a qualifying tournament of the World Youth Championship. The top two teams (generally finalists) of the AFC Youth Championship could qualify for the World Youth Championship until 1995. The two competitions were held every two years, and introduced 90-minute matches since 1979.

The number of participating teams in the FIFA World Youth Championship was increased from 16 to 24 in 1997, and four Asian countries, generally the semi-finalists in the AFC Youth Championship, has qualified for the competition since then. The FIFA World Youth Championship was renamed the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2007. The AFC Youth Championship was relaunched as the AFC U-19 Championship in 2008 and the AFC U-20 Asian Cup in 2023.

The following is a list of match results in the FIFA U-20 World Cup, AFC U-20 Asian Cup and AFF U-19 Youth Championship.^[11][12]

  Win0   Draw0   Loss