Sunday, June 13, 2010

In World Cup, South Korea sits atop Group B

By Anthony Vasquez

South Korea defeated Greece 2-0 in its first game of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa on Saturday.

Lee Jung-Soo scored seven minutes into the game in Nelson Mandela Bay/Port Elizabeth. Seven minutes into the second half, captain park Ji-Sung scored. Greece, now down by two goals, fought hard to come back, but in the end did not score. In Seoul, up to 50,000 people gathered in the city hall plaza to watch the game on giant television screens.

“It’s still too early to say that the Korea of 2002 are back, but what’s certain is that we were able to use our speed to maximum advantage,” Lee toldFIFA.com. “We expected the Greeks to be slow. We knew that even if they were bigger and more physical than us, we had to use our speed as our principal strength.”

In the 2002 World Cup which South Korea and Japan jointly hosted, South Korea finished fourth in the tournament after losing 3-2 to Turkey. In the Germany 2006 World Cup, South Korea did not make it beyond the first round.

South Korea’s next match is on Thursday June 17 against Argentina. Argentina, which won its opener on Saturday against Nigeria 1-0, is second in Group B because of South Korea’s goal advantage. Argentina is a formidable opponent.

Kick off in Johannesburg is at 1:30 p.m. local time, 8:30 p.m. in South Korea, and 4:30 a.m. Pacific in the United States. ESPN will broadcast in English,
ESPN3.com will have a Korean language stream, and Univision will broadcast in Spanish.

Links+

Agence France-Press by way of FIFA.com
Koreans celebrate victory in style
June 13, 2010

FIFA.com
Korea Rrepublic - Greece - the matches of 2010 World Cup South Africa
June 12, 2010

FIFA.com
Injection of pace drives Korea Republic
June 12, 2010

Associated Press by way of Huffingtonpost.com
2010 World Cup Live Coverage Expands on the Web, Cell Phones
By Jake Coyle and Sangwon Yoon
june 9, 2010

No comments:

Post a Comment