Last Sunday, Mexico edged out the United States 1-0 in an intensely fought final to cruise to their 8th CONCACAF Gold Cup title and 11th overall continential title. With a goal from LA Galaxy midfielder Jonathan Dos Santos, El Tri managed to defeat the United States for the fifth time in the Gold Cup final. For nearly 30 years, Mexico and the United States have demonstrated their bilateral dominance of CONCACAF through the continental football association’s premier biennial competition. Though, in some editions of the tournament, less prominent CONCACAF players such as Canada and Costa Rica have threatened this balance of power.
However, prior to 2007, CONCACAF had a history of inviting national teams from outside of their federation to take part in the formerly 12-team Gold Cup. Due to specific qualifying rules, only 10 Gold Cup spots were allocated to CONCACAF teams, while the other two were invitees from other confederations. CONMEBOL teams like Colombia were routinely selected due to their general proximity to North America. But in preparation for the 2002 World Cup, the Korea Republic national team was actually invited to the 2000 and 2002 editions of the Gold Cup. In fact, Korea was the first nation outside of the Americas to have participated in the tournament. The only other national team to have achieved this feat was South Africa in 2005, who were also seeking to become impressive hosts of an upcoming World Cup.
The First of Two Tournaments
The 2000 Gold Cup saw the KNT matched up in Group D with Canada and Costa Rica. (Remember those two teams because they’ll make another key appearance in this article.) Costa Rica played to 2-all ties in both of their matches, while the game between Canada and South Korea ended up in a scoreless draw. With each of the three teams deadlocked at two points, goals had to be counted, naming Costa Rica the group winners. However, with no fair play rule in place, Canada and South Korea had to be separated by a coin toss to determine who would move onto the quarterfinals. Korea manager Huh Jung-moo chose tails. The decision went heads. Canada moved on and won the entire tournament, trekking through respectable teams, including Mexico and Colombia, in their path to international silverware. To this day, Les Rouges, not Brazil, are the only team besides the US and Mexico to have won the Gold Cup. (There’s a more detailed article from the Canadian perspective about the craziness of the coin toss here.)
The Big Stage Before the Big Stage
Two years later, the KNT returned to CONCACAF’s biggest stage with something to prove. Playing with a young Park Ji-sung and Lee Young-pyo, Korea found themselves with a cannon-load of potential heading into the 2002 Gold Cup. This time, they were pitted up against the U.S. and Cuba in Group B. Having defeated the Americans 1-0 in Korea just a month before, the KNT were set to face the United States again, this time in sunny Southern California. This game was crucial, considering both teams were going to encounter each other for a third time in a year at the 2002 World Cup the following Summer. Disappointingly, Korea let the game slip through their hands after 19 year-old DaMarcus Beasley, the youngest player on the American team, had scored in the final minute. Fortunately, Korea were able to regroup four days later for their match against Cuba, which ended in a scoreless draw. This time, Korea was successfully able to reach the knockout stages, having edged out Cuba for second place by one goal scored.
Korea met with a familiar rival in Mexico when they reached the tournament quarterfinals. Before this marquee matchup, Korea had defeated Mexico 2-1 in a group stage match in the 2001 Confederations Cup. With the game tied 1-all, Yoo Sang-chul had scored in the final minute of regular time to keep Korea’s hopes in the Confederations Cup alive. Korea would later defeat Australia but were left out of the tournament semifinals that year after succumbing to France in a humiliating 5-0 defeat in their first group match. By the time Mexico were ready to face Korea again, they had already dispatched Central American rivals El Salvador and Guatemala for first place in Group A. Despite the Confederations Cup loss, the Mexicans were heavy favorites to defeat Korea and win the entire tournament once again.
Return to the Rose Bowl
A crowd of more than 30,000 gathered at the Rose Bowl that Winter afternoon to watch El Tri and the Taeguk Warriors compete for a spot on the Gold Cup podium. For Southern Californians of Korean descent, this would be one of the few opportunities they would have to watch the KNT play in-person. For the neutral viewer, this game was an inside look into how both Korea and Mexico would fare in the ensuing 2002 World Cup. After a hard fight of 120 minutes from both teams, the game ended in a scoreless draw, forcing it into a penalty shootout in the rain.
Noriega. Check. De Anda. Check. Mexico scored their first two. EY Lee. Check. DG Lee. Check. Korea scored their first two as well. It was suddenly tied at two penalties a piece, with Luis Sosa Cisneros coming up to the spot. His quick attempt down the middle was immediately batted away by Suwon goalkeeper Lee Woon-jae. Choi Sung-yong then put a conservative shot past Adrian Martinez to put Korea ahead 3-2 in the shootout. Ignacio Hierro was next to feel the weight of an entire country’s continental hopes on his shoulders. Blasting his shot from the left foot, Hierro had his attempt blocked down the middle. Once again, Lee Woon-jae’s heroics would prove to save Korea in their quest for Gold Cup glory. Future Tottenham defender Lee Young-pyo put in a high shot to his right that met the crossbar and dropped down past the goal line to put Korea into the semifinals. (Rare footage of the shootout can be found here.)
Korea’s Other Fourth Place Finish in 2002
Korea would later fall undone by Costa Rica 3-1 to lose their chance of winning their first continental tournament since the 1986 Asian Games. Korea faced off against Canada in the third place match, only to lose that match as well by a scoreline of 2-1. An own goal by Kim Do-hoon in the 34th minute and a goal by Canada a minute later would prove to be Korea’s tournament pitfall to 4th place. On the positive side, Korea had greatly exceeded expectations by placing in a tournament as invitees with a mostly second-string lineup. Amazingly, Korea had found a way to finish 4th place in the Gold Cup without winning a match—the Mexico match was recorded as a tie in the FIFA record books. Unbeknownst to Dutch manager Guus Huddink, this wouldn’t be the only instance that he would take Korea to a 4th place finish in an international tournament that year.
To be fair, Korea’s 4th place “success” can be greatly attributed to the unconventional format of the 2002 Gold Cup. Firstly, Korea would have never been invited to this tournament twice had they not been selected as World Cup hosts. Secondly, Korea wouldn’t have been invited had CONCACAF been large and strong enough to host a tournament with 12 of its own teams. With 12 teams being split into four groups, Korea only had to place second in a group of three to make it to the knockout stages. Although the United States is always a strong matchup for Korea, Cuba has mostly been a global minnow for much of its footballing history. I could only imagine the riots had Korea not finished above Cuba at that time. As long as Korea could hold its ground against Mexico, the team had a path to getting to the semifinals of the Gold Cup that year. What happened a few months after that tournament, though? You likely know the story of 2002. We’ll leave that article for another day.
With Asian Cup finalists Japan and Qatar having recently participated in the last edition of Copa America, national team invitations to continental tournaments are still alive and well today. Although the Gold Cup is now a 16-team, all-CONCACAF tournament, Korea still has the chance to compete as invitees in future CONMEBOL competitions. Would you like to see Korea take part in one of these tournaments in the future? How well do you think they would have fared in either the Gold Cup or Copa America this Summer?
Also, let us know in the comments if you remember the 2002 Gold Cup or the KNT’s pre-2002 World Cup run. Feel free to share how you felt about watching the KNT during that time.
For some reason I vaguely remember seeing Song Chong gug score one of his long distance goals
I used to think it wouldn’t be a bad idea if the KMNT got invited to Copa America, but if they’re going to have to play atrociously bad pitches as seen in Brazil during Copa 2019, forget it. The ruts and divots clearly seen all over the pitches in each stadium was a complete joke. This is supposed to be a professional tournament? You only had to look at the Gold Cup, a tournament much lesser on the hierarchy and not a blade of grass looking to out of place to notice the stark difference. If future Copa tourneys can get their act together and throw a professional grade tournament, I think the KMNT has to consider it. It’s not good enough to play low ranked teams in the Asian Cup and Asian Qualifying. I almost wish the AFC had a CONCACAF style Hexagonal, where the top 6 teams duke it out for 3.5 spots. It would keep the KMNT, Australia, Japan, Iran, much, much sharper IMO than the current setup.
Hi Glen! So I think that the Copa America would theoretically be a good tournament for us to try to get invited to. I think Brazil is just currently struggling with infrastructure and maintenance of stadiums because their entire economy as a whole is in trouble. That being said, the next Copa America is next year, and it concurs with the 2020 Tokyo Olympics so it’s highly unlikely that the KFA will accept an invite to that. In fact, Conmebol now intends to hold the Copa America in the same year as the Summer Olympics, so it’s highly unlikely that we will ever go there. The Olympics is far too important to our men’s football program to risk injuries to any important players by sending them to the Copa America and Olympics in the same summer schedule.
In terms of improving the quality of opposition that the KNT faces so that we improve at the World Cup, a Hexagonal group similar to Concacaf isn’t what I would do. I just hate how forgiving the hexagonal itself is. Think about it. The final round of Concacaf qualifying is narrowed down to 6 teams and half are guaranteed a spot at the World Cup. That is actually incredibly easy. Yes, the AFC format is watered down because there are the top 12 teams and the seeding separates the heavy hitters. However, in those 6 team groups, only 2 are guaranteed a spot at the World Cup! That makes every match that much more important. While it absolutely stinks that we have backed our way into the past 2 World Cups, it’s not a problem that changing the format to a hexagonal would fix. If anything, that could increase the likelihood that we fail to qualify altogether. What the KFA should hope for is an AFC Nations League that takes the place of the friendlies. That means that we stop scheduling friendlies with South American B teams, which hasn’t really helped us improve much anyway recently. Instead, we get to test ourselves against the top of the AFC more often. A group of Iran, KNT, Japan, and Australia with relegation to a lower tier on the line would certainly improve us more than inviting Colombia, Uruguay, et al to come play us in Korea while they are jet-lagged.
Yes, it stinks that cross-confederation competition is being killed by FIFA and the money interests in football, but the AFC will have to adapt and figure out better ways to improve football in Asia. The Nations League is the way to do it in this current situation.
The non-CONMEBOL Copa 2020 invitees have already been set (Australia and Qatar) so I knew they weren’t going to get invited next year, but you do raise an excellent point regarding the Olympics and the military exemption it potentially provides players.
I suppose an AFC Nations League tournament is also a decent alternative to the current setup. It’s easy for us to sit here and write about it, but I really wish the AFC could come up with a different idea. The only AFC team that has been to a QF since the knockout stage contained 16 teams has been Korea in 2002. That’s it. I get it, Mexico has tried to get to “Qunito Partido” in 7 straight World Cups and has failed each time, which is comically dour. But getting back to AFC qualifying, not sure how the KMNT auto advancing to the 2nd round and having to play 8 matches against Turkmenistan, Sri Lanka, North Korea & Lebanon helps us. Yes, I know that is not the KMNT’s fault or the JFA’s fault, but man, what a waste of time. Hopefully another solution can come about, giving 4 spots to the AFC has done nothing for Asian football, especially when minimum 2 teams, sometimes every AFC team bows out in the group stage.
So, you’re making a good point Glen and it’s one I hope the AFC is thinking about.
With the Confederations Cup officially canceled to make way for a 24 team Club World Cup in 2021, there are less and less ways for the minnows of world football to meaningfully improve.
However, I still think that the AFC has settled upon a very fair World Cup Qualifying setup that caters to the entire continent, not just Asia’s big guns. It’s important for the development of Asian football for nations Sri Lanka, Turkmenistan, etc. to get a chance to play against the best in Asian on a regular basis. If not, how will they improve? And they need to improve because in 2026 some of our Asian minnows will now be going to the World Cup because of the expansion to 48 nations!
So what do the big guns need to do to perform better at the 2022 World Cup? You’re absolutely right that Asia has performed really poorly in the recent World Cups. I think there are 2 things that must happen for Korea specifically. Korea should be asking the AFC for Nations League. More competitive fixtures against strong nations in Asia, even if it’s repetitive, will be the way forward. This is what Europe and Concacaf have done so it’s now very hard for us to arrange friendlies with them anymore. That Costa Rica friendly will go away once Costa Rica starts having to use certain international breaks for Concacaf Nations League, in addition to their World Cup Qualifying hex matches. If Conmebol becomes our only option for friendlies, we’re just gonna get friendlies against jet-lagged B/A hybrid squads that won’t actually help us improve. It will not be a good way to test ourselves. We could try to experiment with friendlies with AFCON nations but I think the KFA avoids that because the travel arrangements are difficult. African nations may struggle to be able to come to Korea for the friendlies or vice versa. Maybe arranging friendlies with Nigeria, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt and Senegal would help. However, we usually save that for the World Cup training camp when both teams are in the host country.
So, for the first thing I think just having more competitive matches against Japan, Australia, Vietnam, Thailand, China, Iran, and Iraq for the Nations League is the best way forward. The other thing I want to see is the KFA putting more emphasis on the U20 World Cup and Olympics. Those are actual competitive tournaments against teams from around the world. Send the full scouting team to those matches so that we can learn how other nations are setting up tactically. Then integrate the U20 and Olympics players into the World Cup Qualifying squad. This is simple. These are the players who are actually tested against the world’s best. So they should be ready to play World Cup qualifying matches. For too long, the KFA has allowed the player pool to stagnate and ignored the need to quickly integrate successful youth players. Bento should change this and take the 2020 Olympics team, which I hope wins the gold medal, and integrate them into the World Cup Qualifying squad for the final round of qualifying as much as he can. That’s how I think we do better at the 2022 World Cup.