'Korea's all-time record numbers' Coach Hong Myung-bo, who said he had "no interest in restoring his reputation," now repeats the disgrace from 12 years ago [World Cup On-Site Issues]

*This content was translated by AI.

The commander who had boasted of restoring his reputation ultimately repeated the historic humiliation from 12 years ago exactly as it happened. Football fans had to witness two times under the same coach's command a historically unprecedented blunder and a shameful performance that is difficult to produce even once.

The South Korean national football team led by Coach Hong Myung-bo suffered a shocking 0-1 defeat against South Africa in the final third qualifying match of the 2026 FIFA North, Central America and Caribbean Cup Group A, held at Estadio BBVA in Monterrey, Mexico, at 10 a.m. (Korea time) on the 25th.

As a result, South Korea, with one win and two losses (three points), fell to third place in the group, trailing South Africa, which was rated as the weakest team. Thanks to Mexico's victory over the Czech Republic at the same time, South Korea narrowly avoided the worst disaster of being eliminated as the group's last-place team, but was reduced to a pitiful situation of begging for a spot in the round of 32 by comparing results with third-place teams in other groups.

This incident was a disaster caused by a combination of no tactics and poor judgment. Ahead of the South Africa match, when Coach Hong brought up the pain from 12 years ago during a press conference, he showed a detached attitude, saying, "I have no interest in restoring my reputation. I will focus solely on the match."

However, the actual content of the South Africa match, once the lid was lifted, was so miserable and pathetic that it was impossible to tell what the commander had prepared at all.

The biggest mistake was the move to exclude team captain and key striker Son Heung-min (LAFC) from the starting lineup. Son Heung-min started on the bench in his first-ever World Cup match, and Hong's team suffered from severe lack of offensive opportunities. The first-time-used striking duo of Hwang Hee-chan (Wolverhampton Wanderers) and Oh Hyeon-gyu (Besiktas) could not even scratch the tight defense of South Africa.

Furthermore, excluding Lee Jae-sung (Mainz), who served as the link between offense and defense, from the lineup was a bizarre experiment. With Lee Jae-sung, who performed the linker role, gone, South Korean football collapsed from the first half and dragged on throughout the match. There were frequent passing errors due to poor coordination in the central area, and counterattacks were easily conceded even in transition situations. The worst performance continued, with the goalkeeper Kim Seung-gyu (FC Tokyo) barely saving the team from near-goal situations throughout the first half, including consecutive shots by Mbangwa and Makgopa.

The coach's substitution cards in the second half also became a self-destructive move. At the start of the second half, Coach Hong made a radical change by substituting Hwang Hee-chan and Lee Tae-seok (Austria Vienna) and Baek Seung-ho (Birmingham City) with Son Heung-min, Jens Castro (Borussia Mönchengladbach), and Kim Jin-gyu (Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors). The plan was to use Son Heung-min as a joker to exploit the space behind the opponent's defense, but the defense collapsed in the 18th minute of the second half, ultimately conceding a shocking first goal to South Africa's Maseko, completely derailing the steps.

Once South Africa, having scored a goal, sat back completely, Son Heung-min was thoroughly isolated in the narrow space where the gaps had disappeared, managing zero effective shots. Furthermore, in the 21st minute of the second half, when an equalizer was desperately needed, the team made an inexplicable substitution, removing key central defender Kim Min-jae (Bayern Munich) and bringing on Park Jin-seop (Zhejiang FC), which weakened its own competitiveness in set-piece height battles. Ultimately, South Korea's attack repeated static and dull football, limited to long kicks targeting only the head of Cho Gue-sung (Midtjylland) within the monotonous constraint of feeding Lee Kang-in (Paris Saint-Germain), and even the extra six minutes were wasted in vain.

This horrific tactical failure and great humiliation give football fans a strong sense of deja vu. Exactly 12 years ago, in the 2014 Brazil World Cup, Hong Myung-bo's team also suffered a great disaster of being eliminated as the last-place team in the group stage after losing to Belgium in the final group match with a powerless performance.

At that time, Coach Hong was heavily criticized for his stubbornness in selecting certain players, monotonous tactical patterns, and powerless performance. Now, 12 years later in 2026, he has simply moved the stage to North America and repeated the same tactical misjudgments and great defeats.

Twelve years ago, it was elimination as the last-place team in the group, failing to reach the round of 16. This time, due to the increase in participating teams, he was forced to calculate a more humiliating scenario where he barely clung to third place in the group and had to pray for the mercy of other teams' players. Coach Hong Myung-bo's boast that he had no interest in restoring his reputation ultimately left no tactical preparation or Plan B, leaving only another unforgettable, all-time shameful record in South Korean football history.

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*This content was translated by AI.