South Korea's Miraculous Achievement in World Cup 2002 Part 2

We continue our story about South Korea's achievement in the 2002 World Cup.

After overcoming the group stage for the first time in its history, Korea succeeded in overcoming the second round for the first time in its history as well and beat Italy in a match that sparked a lot of controversies.

The Quarter-final

In the quarterfinals, South Korea faced Spain on June 22, 2002, at the World Cup stadium in Gwangju.

The Spanish national team at that time represented the following squad:

Goalkeeper: Iker Casillas

Defenders: Carlos Puyol, Fernando Hierro, Miguel Angel Nadal, Enrique Fernandez

Midfielders: Joaquin Sanchez, Ivan Helguera, Juan Carlos Valeron, Ruben Baraja, Javier de Pedro.

Attackers: Fernando Morientes

While the South Korean lineup was as follows:

Goalkeeper: Lee Won Jae

Defenders: Choi Jin-Cheol, Hong Myung Bo, Kim Tae-young

Midfielders: Song Chung-guk, Kim Nam-il, Yoo Sang-chul, Lee Seung-bo, Park Ji-sung

Attackers: Ahn Jung Hwan, Seol Ki Hyun

At 15:30 that day, the Egyptian referee, Gamal Al-Ghandour, blew the whistle for the kickoff of the match.

The 90 minutes and extra time ended 0-0.

The referee had canceled a valid goal by Fernando Morientes on the pretext that the ball had crossed the final line of the field, where Joaquin dribbled the defenders of Korea and sent a cross to the head of Morientes, who scored the goal, and the replay showed that the ball did not go outside the field.

In the penalty shootout, Hwang Son Hong scored the first goal for South Korea. Fernando Hierro also scored for Spain. Park Ji-sung put Korea back ahead by scoring in the second penalty shootout. Ruben Baraja in turn scored the second penalty shootout for Spain to make the score 2-2. Seol Ki Hyun scored for Korea and Xavi Hernandez did for Spain. Ahn Jung Hwan scored the fourth kick for Korea, while Jaoquín Sanchez missed the fourth kick for Spain to make the score 4-3 in favor of the Koreans.

Hong Myung-bo took the fifth kick and scored against Casillas, announcing the historic qualification of the South Korean team to the World Cup semi-finals for the first time in its history and for the first time in the history of Asian teams.

Semi-final

On June 25, 2002, the World Cup stadium in the South Korean capital, Seoul, hosted the semi-final match between the Korean national team and the German team.

Korea, which at the time was living a historical dream of reaching the World Cup final, faced the strong German team, which only conceded one goal in that tournament until the semi-finals.

In the 75th minute, German star Michael Ballack dashed the dreams of the South Koreans and brought them back to reality by scoring the goal of progress for his country, a goal that was enough to stop the surprises of South Korea at the end of the semi-finals.

Germany qualified for the final to meet Brazil, while Korea went to the match for third and fourth places against Turkey, which they lost 4-3 in turn.

Thus, Korea achieved, in its participation in the 2002 World Cup, the best rank in its history and in the history of Asian teams.

The Koreans honored the coach of the national team at the time, Guus Hiddink, by granting him Korean citizenship.