 |
| |
|
 |
 |
|
|
Coming of age Host S. Korea beats Poland 2-0 for first World Cup winPosted: Tuesday June 04, 2002 7:29 AMUpdated: Tuesday June 04, 2002 12:05 PM
BUSAN, South Korea (AP) -- South Korea picked the perfect forum to claim its first ever win at a World Cup. Hwang Sun-hong's first-half goal gave the Koreans an edge over Poland and Yoo San-chul sealed the upset with a right-foot drive in the 53rd minute as the tournament co-host opened its campaign in the first World Cup staged in Asia. (Seoul explodes with joy) Yoo's goal sparked raucous chanting and an outpouring of euphoria mixed with relief from long suffering fans. The noise and war cries continued inside and outside Busan's Asiad Stadium more than an hour after Korean squad had completed its victory lap. Not even the ongoing ticketing woes or a transport crisis could contrive to spoil the moment. The stands were awash in red as the bulk of the crowd was decked in the home supporters' shirts of the national team. Fans descended on Busan from all over the Korean Peninsula to witness what most believed would be South Korea's much-awaited moment.
Giant TV screens set up in malls and public squares around South Korea were also packed to capacity. The government ordered a special train be commissioned to ensure ticketholders from the capital Seoul didn't miss out after flights to Busan were canceled in the afternoon due to fog and high winds in the southern port city. "When I first took over the team, they asked me, "Please give us one victory,'" said Dutchman Guus Hiddink, who took over last year. "We are now there. "This is an enormous day for Koreans ... [but] this is just one step toward going further." Hiddink, who coached the Netherlands to the semifinals four years ago in France, said it would be dangerous for the Koreans to get caught up in the euphoria. "We achieved one victory for many people," he said. "My team must be greedy to go for the next game. Korean fans deserve to have this big, historic victory." For the entire second half, fans decked mostly in red shirts to support their beloved "Red Devils" (the nickname for both teams), chanted: "Oh, Oh, Korea!" "Oh, Pilsung Korea" for the entire second half. The chant translates to: "Korea's sure to win!" South Korea had gone winless at five previous World Cup finals appearances. Despite that, Hiddink's squad is under enormous pressure to reach the second round here after local organizers spent eight years and billions of dollars to help stage the quadrennial event. Skipper Hong Myung-bo, who has been to three previous World Cup finals, said he was thrilled to attain 'our long-cherished ambition." "We struggled for this and finally made it," he said. "Until today, we had one aim: to win the game against Poland," Hong added. "We set another aim here, to prepare perfectly for the game against the United States. As we have some time from now, we will scrutinize the U.S. and beat them." The Koreans went into their opening Group D match on a 4-1 win over Scotland, a 1-1 draw with England and a narrow 3-2 loss to defending world champion France in tuneups, but few -- outside South Korea -- expected such a dominating performance against Poland.
Poland was the first European team to qualify -- apart from France which got an automatic spot as defending champion -- after topping its group regional qualifying, but have been patchy since with a home loss to Japan and an uninspiring 1-0 win over Estonia in recent warmups. The results against England and France obviously weren't flukes, Poland coach Jerzy Engel said. "It was a very difficult game. The host team in the first game is always very strong," Engel said. "They were better than us." Engel said the Koreans were well organized and could be packing more surprises. "It was very disappointing for us -- we had two chances in the opening minutes and missed them," he said. "We wanted to win our opening match to challenge for first place in the group. Now this makes it very hard -- we've got to fight for second place to go through." Polish goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek, a stand out for Liverpool in the English Premier League, had two slip ups against the Korean attack. Hwang, 33, who had only scored one goal in three previous trips to the World Cup finals, connected with a neat cross from Lee Eul-yong and slammed a left-footed volley beyond Dudek's outstretched hands. He was delighted. His opposite number, Nigerian-born Emmanuel Olisadebe, didn't get many chances in his World Cup debut for Poland. "We made a few mistakes. We had chances in the first half, but we didn't use them. They had chances and they scored," he said. "Portugal seems to be a more difficult team than Korea, but you never know. This is the World Cup, and you can expect anything." The win will give the Koreans huge confidence going into their remaining group matches against the United States and Portugal. Poland, which was considered a favorite to advance to the second round from Group D along with the Portuguese, needs to regroup quickly to have any chance of making the last 16 in its first trip back to the World Cup since 1986. SummarySouth Korea 2 Poland 0 -- result World Cup, group D Scorers: Hwang Sun-hong 26, Yoo Sang-chul 53 Yellow cards: South Korea -- Park Ji-sung 74 Poland -- Jacek Krzynowek 31, Tomasz Hajto 79, Piotr Swierczewski 85 Halftime: 1-0 Teams: South Korea (3-4-3): 1-Lee Woon-jae; 4-Choi Jin-cheul, 20-Hong Myung-bo, 7-Kim Tae-young; 22-Song Chong-gug, 5-Kim Nam-il, 6-Yoo Sang-chul (14-Lee Chun-soo 61), 13-Lee Eul-yong; 21-Park Ji-sung; 18-Hwang Sun-hong (19-Ahn Jung-hwan 50), 9-Seol Ki-hyeon (16-Cha Doo-ri 90) Poland (4-4-2): 1-Jerzy Dudek; 20-Jacek Bak (2-Tomasz Klos 51), 15-Tomasz Waldoch, 6-Tomasz Hajto, 4-Michal Zewlakow; 18-Jacek Krzynowek, 7-Piotr Swierczewski, 10-Radoslaw Kaluzny (14-Marcin Zewlakow 65), 21-Marek Kozminski; 11-Emmanuel Olisadebe, 19-Maciej Zurawski (9-Pawel Kryszalowicz 46) Match referee: Oscar Ruiz (Colombia) Linesmen: Elise Doriri (Vanuatu), Leif Lindberg (Sweden)
Reuters contributed to this report. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
