By losing to Honduras today in the quarter-finals, South Korea's players lost a golden chance to get exempted from the mandatory 2-year conscription for all South Korean males between 19 and 30. That means the likes of Son Heung-min of Tottenham Hotspur will have to leave the team at least for two years.
I have been thinking about LSW's future, he is 18 now, if he gets selected into the South Korea U23 team for the 2018 Asian Games and ONLY if South Korea wins the gold medal, he is exempted. Or he will have to wait for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, by then he would be 22, and South Korea will have to at least finish 3rd for him to be exempted. Otherwise we will lose him for 2 years where he will most likely end up at Sangju Sangmu, a team made up of players affiliated with the South Korean military which just joined the top flight of South Korea club football (K-League Classics) this year. It would be a huge risk if he goes, because he might regress in 2 years.