'Shattering the record for the worst ranking in history': Korea's football suffers a national humiliation, exposed by the expansion to 48 participating nations as a '34th place out of 48'... 'No excuses' for the miserable reality [World Cup on-site issues

*This content was translated by AI.

On the first-ever 48-nation stage with a lowered threshold, South Korean football failed to advance even from the group stage, ultimately receiving a report card of 34th place. This is nothing short of the most shameful disaster in the history of Korean football.

Until the final day of the World Cup group stage, the odds were not in favor of Coach Hong's team. In the K Group, the Democratic Republic of the Congo defeated Uzbekistan 3-1, eliminating all possible scenarios for South Korea. Meanwhile, in the J Group, Algeria drew 3-3 with Austria after a tight contest, causing Coach Hong's team's World Cup ranking to plummet.

After suffering a humiliating 0-1 defeat against South Africa in the final group stage match in South Africa, Coach Hong's team needed to match one of three specific scenarios out of nine possible outcomes to barely survive. However, most scenarios failed miserably, with only one result — Spain defeating Uruguay 1-0 — moving in South Korea's favor.

Thus, in the first-ever 48-nation system with a significantly lowered threshold, the final report card for the South Korean national football team was recorded as a historic humiliation of 34th place. Coach Hong Myung-bo's dream, which aimed to restore honor by learning from the failure in Brazil 12 years ago, has become the most shameful disaster in the history of Korean football.

This tournament featured a structure where the top eight teams among the 12 third-place group finishers could catch the last train to the Round of 32. Moreover, it was widely evaluated that the draw was historically favorable, as South Korea avoided the strongest teams in Pot 1 and was grouped with host nation Mexico, Czech Republic, and the weakest team, South Africa. When South Korea defeated Czech Republic 2-1 in the first match, advancing to the knockout stage seemed like a foregone conclusion.

Despite starting well, the team self-destructed. After the victory against Czech Republic, Coach Hong's team consistently adopted an overly passive approach. In the match against Mexico (0-1), they collapsed due to a fatal error that led to a goal. In the final third match against South Africa, where a draw would have secured automatic second place in the group, they suffered a crushing 0-1 defeat after a lifeless and ineffective performance. Lacking tactics and suffering a collapse in both attack and defense, they incurred two consecutive scoreless defeats, completely destroying their path to direct qualification.

Even amidst the shock of the crushing defeat, Coach Hong Myung-bo, in a base camp interview the day after the South Africa match, said, "We must rebuild the team somehow. It is not over yet. If we compose ourselves well in the remaining period and achieve good results in the Round of 32, the players will be applauded again," continuing to express an optimistic outlook without any alternatives. However, while failing to identify even technical causes and blaming only environmental factors such as the hot weather in Monterrey, the lifeline of the national team was completely cut off.

Ultimately, the survival scenario vanished in an instant, and Coach Hong's journey in North America and the Caribbean ended with a historic disaster of elimination from the group stage. Korean football has retreated to the periphery of world football, leaving behind the humiliating metric of 34th place out of 48 nations.

This is a humiliation after eight years. South Korea's elimination from the World Cup group stage is the ninth in history, following the 1954 Switzerland, 1986 Mexico, 1990 Italy, 1994 USA, 1998 France, 2006 Germany, 2014 Brazil, and 2018 Russia tournaments. After first advancing to the knockout stage with the quarterfinal legend of the 2002 Korea-Japan tournament, and following the 2010 South Africa and 2022 Qatar (both away Round of 16) tournaments, South Korean football, which aimed for its fourth consecutive tournament appearance and second consecutive knockout stage qualification, faced the tragedy of early elimination for the first time in eight years since the 2018 Russia tournament.

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*This content was translated by AI.