It’s been three weeks since the final between Spain and The Netherlands took place in Johannesburg last July 11. Now in brief a quick summary of the East Asian teams’ showing this time around folows.
North Korea and Australia, which is part of the Asian Football Confederation, did not get out of the first round. Australia lost to Germany 4-0, tied with Ghana 1-1, and defeated Serbia 2-1. North Korea did much worse losing its three games: 2-1 against Brazil, 7-0 against Portugal, and 3-0 against Ivory Coast. It gave up the most goals of any team in the tournament with a total of 12 goals.
South Korea and Japan made it to the Round of 16. In its last game of the competition, South Korea lost to Uruguay 2-1. In its match against Paraguay, Japan tied 0-0 after 120 minutes of play. Paraguay won the shootout from the penalty line that followed 5-3 and moved on to lose against Spain.
Both South Korea and Japan demonstrated that they are teams with the potential to move beyond the first round of the playoffs. In the 2002 Korea Japan tournament, South Korea did just that, making it as far as the semifinals. In the Third-place game against Turkey, South Korea lost 3-1.
Japan has not made it past the Round of 16. With some changes, the team may just do so next time.
Though no Chinese speaking nation was in this World Cup, there is a Chinese-English bilingual version of K Naan’s song “Wavin’ Flag.” Below is a video of it.
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