If you’re not watching it, you can follow it via Al-Guardian’s min-by-min.
UPDATE: Uruguay scores on some bad goalkeeping.
But hey, if it makes the Korean fans feel any better:
Note: OK, something that kind of annoys me — the use of given names on the Korean jerseys. I mean, I understand why they do it, but I still don’t like it. I’d rather they just do it like the Yankees and leave the names off completely.
Half-time: Korea 0, Uruguay 1. Korea’s forwards are running around the pitch with a lot of energy, though, with a couple of real nice runs.
By way of half-time entertainment, I give you this video, sent to me by a reader/emailer who is convinced I hate Canada:
Cute. PS: Thanks for the Nordiques and Jets.
UPDATE: Koreans have come out fighting in the second half. They really seem to be controlling the game at this point: Uruguay can’t seem to mount any attack at all.
PS: Will somebody please tell the SBS guys to stop bitching about the lack of fouls on Uruguay?
UPDATE: GOALLLLLLLLLL! Park Chu-young. Given the way Korea has dominated this game in the second half, it had to happen. Frankly, Korea deserves to win this game the way things are going now.
UPDATE: Uruguay scores to go up 2—1. Boy, that Suarez guy is all over the pitch.
IT’S OVER: Uruguay holds on to win 2—1. The Koreans put up a hell of a fight, but man, Lee Dong-gook…
From the Marmot’s Hole’s football commentator iheartblueballs:
Korea played well, but their loss came down to the same two factors that have been apparent since day one: Crippling defensive lapses and lack of finishers.
They had plenty of opportunity, but just don’t have the elite goal-scorers that can capitalize.
Uruguay’s performance definitely makes me feel a lot better about the US chances should we advance. You know the US scouts are currently scribbling in their notebooks “heavy pressure will put Uruguay on their heels.”
{ 61 comments… read them below or add one }
Don’t forget the two SK defenders ball-watching and daydreaming while Suarez coasted onto back-post unmarked. Early signs of the Swiss Cheesery.
Korean forwards showing a lot of energy, though.
Yep, SK have had several good runs a couple solid opportunities. Also caught a huge break on that bogus offsides call on the wide-open URU breakaway.
Bogus offsides call AND no handball call. Should have been a penalty.
Uruguay should lose for all that flopping in the first half. Great to see Korea aggressive.
wow, Korea dominating possession at 68%
Korea are dominating this game in every aspect except the only one that matters.
Definitely. Not quite sure why Uruguay is so content on sitting back. Korea’s looking very dangerous on attack.
YEAH GOALLLL
The equalizer. Totally deserved.
There’s the equalizer. Agree on Uruguay sitting back…strange decision given Korea’s defensive deficiencies. Guess they got caught up in their own hype having not conceded a goal in group.
Wow, that was almost a drastic goalkeeping blunder. Interested to see replay on that one.
Korea is keeping the pressure up. Uruguay is looking like absolute shite.
And if I hear Cha Bum-kun whine again I’m going to throw something at my TV.
Uruguay should have been offsides twice there.
Not the second one — even Cha Bum-kun, who has spent much of the second half whinging — thought it was on-sides.
Uruguay looks like a different team now that it’s tied. Maybe they should have given that effort from the start.
Just saw the replay of Korea’s goal. Horrible goalkeeper play. Looked like something I would do.
Oh, lucky goal… punks.
Unbelievable shot.
Quoting the announcer of the feed I’m watching:
“That was a peach.”
Ok… actually that was a pretty good kick. Darn it
You’ve got a funny definition of luck, dokdo. That was a fantastic curl around the far post.
Oh total flop from the Uruguayan
OH NO…… What a chance….
Holy shit! This keeper’s reputed to be good. I don’t see it.
Man, that was an unforgivable attempt at a finish…
I’m with Iceberg… I can see Korea equalizing this.
#8 looks malnourished.
Too bad they gave Uruguay a goal at the start… Korea could have had a chance.
Very respectable effort by Korea…except their defenders, of course.
Korea played well, but their loss came down to the same two factors that have been apparent since day one: Crippling defensive lapses and lack of finishers.
They had plenty of opportunity, but just don’t have the elite goal-scorers that can capitalize.
Uruguay’s performance definitely makes me feel a lot better about the US chances should we advance. You know the US scouts are currently scribbling in their notebooks “heavy pressure will put Uruguay on their heels.”
Now time to root for USA!
Let’s not forgot, it was the first Asian team to make it to the second round on foreign soil.
Now it’s the first Asian team to exit in the second round on foreign soil.
Don’t know why either is notable, but since the first was the second must be too.
Will miss the “Shouting Korea” commercials. I liked the one that had the orangutan covering its ears whilst Koreans shouted at it. What an orangutan was doing in Nigeria I have no idea.
Good showing for Korea. Played well.
Suarez was such an energetic superstar. He had enough energy to score the second goal and still run and jump over the stand.
What a devil!
If Cha BumGun was playing, he could have done what Suarez has done. Some day, another player like Cha will be born in Korea. Then, we will do better.
I hope Japan wins their game. That would really stick in some craws.
The tea of guns for bums?
Well, onto USA…
Korea made it to the second round and played a good game. Korea can hold its head up proud. Korea will have to work on their defense if they want to go farther next time around.
Man that second goal by Uruguay was nice….simply amazing.
I normally cheer for Korea. But as an American, I didn’t want Korea and the US to play against each other. I didn’t want to see the inner Han rage directed at me.
Korea were also clearly in far better condition than Uruguay. They were running circles around them for most of the game, and were able to push full forward and still easily get back to defend.
The shocker to me was that Uruguay had absolutely zero counter-attack, which is the standard play against the Korean pressure. Whenever Uruguay regained possession they always seemed content to lollygag up the field instead of making an aggressive push to put Korea on their heels. Don’t know if this was intentional strategy or just lack of fitness, but it was pathetic.
Watching the replays of the two Uruguay goals is wince-inducing. The first was inexcusable for having 4 SK defenders in the box and not a single one recognized Suarez in the rear, as well as the SK GK getting caught in no-man’s land. The second goal had two SK defenders on Suarez after the corner, and instead of pushing him outside to cut down the angle like you’re taught in grade school, they allowed him inside to get off a clean shot in the box.
Actually, a commenter at my site pointed out:
And North Korea would have got to the second round in 1966 if there had been a second round. As it was they went straight to the quarter finals.
“Let’s not forgot, it was the first Asian team to make it to the second round on foreign soil.”
I know you are repeating this from elsewhere but do you know the rationale behind this? I also assume that it refers to the knockout stage. The question for me is it continental, conferecne or racial? The Saudis (conference and continent) made it to the knockout stages in ’94 in the US. The Turks (referred to by many as Eurasia as it bridges) made their run to the semis in Japan – could be continental but not conference as they are UEFA.
I guess it must be racial? Or selective definitions?
I see a few had a few of the same thoughts.
Korea has nothing to complain about regarding lack of calls that went for them. That breakaway by two Uruguayans was not an offside. Then there was the handball in the penalty box that wasn’t called. That’s two sure goals that Korea avoided.
And as for Lee Dong-Gook, I don’t know what the hell that was, flubbing the kick, and kicking the glorious chance to score the tying goal, with the goal keeper dead in the waters…. oh man… that just about sums up Korea’s incompetence on offense.
The first goal was a typical Korean volunteered goal. Poor defense napping in the box, giving the opposition an easy goal, early in the game. The Korean goalie looked to me lacks confidence with balls that are centered into the box. Only the coach can’t recognizes this. Except for the Greece game, Korea has been in this same position where they fall behind early in the game and have to catch up rest of the game. If you look at all the WC games Korea played in since 2006, out of seven games they played, only in one game they were the first to score. All the other six games, they fell behind early. This team needs a psychologist, they are notorious slow nervous starters with poor confidence.
S. Korea put up a good fight, but you’d think on it’s eight World Cup, that they would get over the factors that more or less defines the Korean football team, such as fumbling the ball in front of the opponent’s goal, and “ball-watching” by some of the players. Kind of gives ammunition to the naysayers who still think that Korea’s performance at 2002 was a fluke.
On top of that Korea will lose one of its better players, because Park Ji-sung has announced that this will be his last World Cup.
http://www.asiae.co.kr/news/view.htm?idxno=2010062702453320457
But still, Korean football has come a long way and shows potential, so here’s hoping that 2014 will bring better results.
It will also be interesting to see how Japan does against Paraguay on June 29th. If Japan beats Paraguay, which IMO is a strong possibility, I can imagine the reaction here from the Korean media and the anti-Japan camp.
The figure of “2014″ truly frightens me…
Anyway, I like videos of Uruguays cheering in the streets and reacting to their team’s victory today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7vUp2HQCpQ
Nice to see the entire planet connected this way — over a ball game.
Come to think of it, out of eight World Cup S.Korea participated in, they scored first in only three games. One was against Greece in 2010, two in 2002 when they scored first against Poland and Portugal. The rest of the games, they’ve been playing catch up, which makes things extremely difficult. More international exposure is needed for Korean players to overcome this psychological barrier so that they don’t start games terrified stiff.
The Korean soccer team has been granted excemption from eating kimchi for two years.
Perhaps if the ans got rid of those evil devils horns they might have at least had God on their side?
IHBB’s analyses are 100% correct, both of them. Now let’s hope whoever’s in charge of SK football thought the same thing.
So… did I just turn dyslexic, or did what leguwan just wrote made no sense to others as well?
Looks like my pre-cup assessment of the Korean squad was pretty accurate.
…I think they’ll go on to at least the 16, maybe the 8.
…[the Koreans have] average defenders, poor strikers, poor goal-keepers. No explosiveness, no brute size and strength.
…[and they have a] tendency to give up when falling behind. We rarely won 2-0, it was either a loss, draw or thrashing.
We saw that latter characteristic against the Argies, and the former against Uruguay.
I don’t think it’s something easily fixed. The best defenders tend to be tall and strong, and the best strikers bullocky. Koreans simply don’t have the physicality to produce the ideal athletes in these positions.
What they do have in abundance are fast, tenacious and skillful midfielders, and they should try to build their game around these strengths: Build the game around possession, and keep the ball on the pitch as often as possible.
The only time they did that last night was in the early stages of the second half, and they completely dominated. In fairness, Uruguay made some poor tactical decisions following their opener that helped (trying to protect their lead by turtling in defence, instead of retaining possession, distributing to their own midfielders and building higher up-field). But it does show what the ROK is capable of when they build from the back and apply pressure with short passes into the Hole, rather than resorting to long balls to isolated strikers.
One thing this World Cup has shown is the importance of offensive football. It used to be that you could put all your players behind the ball and win on the counter. (i.e., Italy and Greece) Not anymore. The best teams this year have defended high and haven’t been afraid to throw men in numbers at the opposition box.
A shame the ROK and the US are out. It would have been a mouth-watering match-up in the round of 8.
Here’s hoping Uruguay go on to win it!
I’m happy to see that, after 50+ comments, nobody came here to say “Yeah, suck it Korea”, or something like that. Looks like people were really 1) rooting for Korea (no matter how hard would be for them to win or not) and 2) acknowledging that they played well.
IMO, there’s only one positive aspect of Korea losing last night’s game; and that is that I’ll be able to get some decent nights sleep from herein. From the way my neighbors throughout the apartment complex were screaming and stomping their feet last night, I thought for sure I’d wake up in the morning to read that Korea had won 20-1.
I do think that Korea did put up a hell of fight against the Uruguayans. I’m just disappointed that they won’t advance. I’m hoping that Korea’s national team will learn the painful lessons of this year’s world cup and do even better in 2014.
As this may be the last football (soccer) related post for the next four years…..
Does anyone have a sunday league team in Gangnam (specifically around YangJae) during Summer and Autumn?
I am not sure if I will be able to remain sane while leaving my football team mid season and will need to find somewhere to kick a round ball hard and run around almost aimlessly.
Much appreciated if there is anything, even just semi-frequent casual soccer matches.
inkevitch, there are some Brazilians (what else could you ask for?) that play around Hannam-dong. Go on Sat mornings near the Myanmar embassy, there is a school there where they play.
Nomad, there’s actually one more good thing to come out of last night’s game. I was able the buy up a lot of South Korean t-shirts for next to nothing today and I see that the same is true back in the U.S. I’ve already got them set aside in my goodwill pile.
It’s just too bad that I can’t find apparel that isn’t associated with flopping like these awesome Rabbitohs t-shirts for a decent price. Maybe if Fifa takes a hint from College Humor, I’d give this sport full of bellyachers and tantrum throwers another shot.
Thanks Maximus, I will try to drop by and play.
BFD
@#38-non-Korean: I totally had similar thoughts (since I’m Korean-American) that if Korea beat Paraguay and met the US in the quarter-finals, I would be torn between two lovers. But now that Ghana has beat the USA and moved on….I totally wished Korea had won. I think a Korea VS Ghana game would have been something Korea could have won. Then at least Korea could have moved on to the semi-finals proving that they should not be overlooked and 2002 wasn’t a complete fluke. But *sigh*….they choke under pressure yet again.
@#46- I don’t think all Koreans would be envious of a Japan victory. I think there are many Koreans who also cheer on Japan (only when Korea is out of the picture) as this helps Asian futbol. I’m tired of all the talk on the internet of the God-given superiority of European and S. American soccer and they act like the world turned upside down when a team like Italy, France, or England gets knocked out early.
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