The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) announced on Tuesday (Korea time) that the participating countries for the third Premier 12 tournament will be decided on their schedules. Hosted by WBSC and sponsored by RAXUS, the tournament features 12 teams ranking from first to 12th in the world ranking of men’s baseball. It is the largest of its kind among international baseball competitions hosted by WBSC. The World Baseball Classic is not hosted by WBSC but hosted by the secretariat of the U.S. Major League Baseball.
Most of the strongest teams in the world ranking from 1st to 12th are participating in the upcoming three competitions. World No. 1 Japan, No. 2 Mexico, No. 3 U.S., No. 4 Korea, No. 5 Taiwan, No. 6 Venezuela, No. 7 Netherlands, No. 8 Cuba, No. 9 Dominican Republic, No. 10 Panama, No. 11 Australia, and No. 12 Puerto Rico were listed. Panama is joining the Premier 12 for the first time, and Australia has qualified for the Premier 12 tournament for the second time in a row.
WBSC President Ricardo Prakari said, “Congratulations to the top 12 teams for making it to the Premier 12. We’ve had two memorable events for WBSC, and we expect next year to be the best international baseball tournament that will captivate baseball fans all over the world.”
The third edition of the Premier 12 will be held from Nov. 10 to 24, 2024. The 12 participating countries will be divided into two groups, and after they play in a round-robin format, the top two teams from each group will face off in the super round. Out of a total of four teams that make it to the super round, the winning two teams will compete for the championship, and the losing two will face off in the bronze medal match.
The tournament will be held in Group A from Nov. 10-14 (to be announced as the venue for the event), and Group B will host the opening match in Nagoya Dome, Japan, on Nov. 13 and then the finals will be held in Taipei City from Nov. 14-18. And again, the super round will be held in Tokyo Dome, Japan, from Nov. 21-23.
Korea is very likely to be in Group B, and if it becomes an opening match against Japan, it will have to play its first match in Nagoya. Otherwise, it will move to the Tokyo Dome if it advances to the super round after playing the finals only in Taipei.
The Korean national baseball team is the first team to win the Premier 12 championship. At the 2015 championship, led by head coach Kim In-sik, the team had three wins and two losses in the group league, followed by Cuba in the quarterfinals and Japan in the semifinals, and won the gold medal by defeating the U.S. in the final. At that time, Kim Hyun-soo was the MVP of the championship. At the second championship in 2019, Kim knelt to Japan in the final and won the silver medal as the runner-up. Since then, the championship has not been held due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it will take place in five years.
We pride ourselves on being the first winner of the Premier 12 tournament, but there is also a lot of pressure to prove it again at a time when we are struggling to raise our reputation in international competitions that have recently fallen to the bottom. 메이저 토토사이트
In fact, the national baseball team’s performance in international competitions has actually declined since it was eliminated in the first round of the 2017 WBC. The 2019 Premier 12 runner-up was not a bad achievement, but it fell further down. Following the shock of no medal at the Tokyo Olympics, Korea failed in the first round of the WBC in March this year. As a result, Korea has failed to pass the first round for three consecutive times since the 2013 WBC.
Since then, KBO and the national baseball team have begun to change generations, declaring that they will fix everything. All the golden generation players of the 1980s, which started with the gold medal in the Beijing Olympics, expressed their intention to retire from the national team, and the Hangzhou Asian Games has formed a team led by players in their 20s.
Although the Asian Games started with the concern that it was the weakest ever, the national baseball team, which had been stagnant for several years, finally gained vitality as it won the gold medal it had hoped for. At the Asian Professional Baseball Championship (APBC) in Tokyo last month, it failed to overcome the last Japan and ended up in second place, but still confirmed the green light for generational change.
Premier 12 is a different stage from the Asian Games and APBC. The Asian Games were not considered a strong opponent as Japan, the strongest country in Asia, had only professional baseball players. APBC also focuses on players in their early 20s from four countries, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Australia, so it is not a complete team.
It is highly likely that the 12th Premier League will be joined by Japan, the U.S., and Latin American countries, with the exception of some major leaguers. Likewise, Korea is a competition where the best players should compete. The atmosphere is different from that of the Asian Games and APBC.
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