Tuesday, June 25th
 Germany vs 
South Korea in Seoul (1:0)
The top 4 teams in the world are one win
away from a place in the 2002 World Cup Final.
Conspiracy theories aside, South Korea are the first Asian side to
reach a World Cup semi-finals..... well, they are the hosts..... or one of them at least.
The game started slowly: South Korea keeping possession well and
Germany content to keep the volume of the crowd down.
Bernd Schneider's first serious cross didn't find Marco Bode or
Miroslav Klose as Lee Woon-Jae collected safely.
Then Lee Chun-Soo showed his pace with a couple of runs through the
middle.... the crescendo of the home crowd seemed to inspire Oliver Kahn to palm away
Korea's first promising attack on goal, in the 9th minute.
Urs Meier turned his back on a German penalty appeal, when Miroslav
Klose fell at the hand of the Korean masked man, Kim Tae-Young, in the 24th minute.
Germany were looking more purposeful than they had done in their
previous two matches.... but that wouldn't really be too hard to do.
South Korea showed that there's more to there game than pace by
outjumping the larger Germans and even pushing them off the ball.
Neither goalkeeper had too much to do as the teams ended the
first-half, of the first semi-final, even.
Half-time: Germany 0 - South Korea 0
Germany tried to increase the pressure at the start of the
second-half....... Klose crossing to Bode.... and Marco Bode then trying to get on the end
of the resulting corner.
The atmosphere in the stadium rose as Ahn Jung-Hwan - reinstated as a
Perugia player - started to warm up.
With a little over half an hour to go, the home fans tried to lift
their team with their monotonous.... "Oh, Korea....."
1:0
To make up for missing the next match, because of his 71st minute yellow card, Michael
Ballack made sure that at least his team would be in the final by running on to Oliver
Neuville's low cross...... Ballack's right foot shot was blocked by Lee Woon-Jae..... but
the Leverkusen star followed up with his left...... and secured Germany a place in the 2002 World Cup Final.
So the conspiracy theories can end;. although we all know South Korea
didn't want to play in Yokohama and will enjoy the third-place match
in Daegu.
Final Score:
Germany 1 -
South Korea 0
Man of the Match:
Michael Ballack - The Bayer Leverkusen star knew he would miss the final, for his second
yellow card, but didn't let his head drop and made sure that his country would at least be
there in Yokohama.
 Yellow Cards:
Michael Ballack (71 mins)
Oliver Neuville (85 mins)
Lee Min-Sung (94 mins)
The Teams
Germany:
1 Oliver Kahn; 22 Torsten Frings; 2 Thomas Linke, 5 Carsten Ramelow, 21 Christoph
Metzelder; 19 Bernd Schneider (16 Jens Jeremies - 85 mins), 13 Michael Ballack, 8 Dietmar
Hamann, 17 Marco Bode; 11 Miroslav Klose (20 Oliver Bierhoff - 69 mins), 7 Oliver Neuville
(14 Gerald Asamoah - 87 mins).
South Korea:
1 Lee Woon-Jae; 4 Choi Jun-Chul (15 Lee Min-Sung - 56 mins), 20 Hong Myung-Bo (9 Seol
Ki-Hyun - 81 mins), 7 Kim Tae-Young; 22 Song Chong-Gug, 14 Lee Chun-Soo, 21 Park Ji-Sung,
6 Yoo Sang-Chul, 10 Lee Young-Pyo; 16 Cha Doo-Ri, 18 Hwang Sun-Hong (19 Ahn Jung-Hwan - 54
mins).
Referee: Urs Meier 
In Korea
Group A
 Denmark,  France,  Senegal,  Uruguay.
Group B
 Paraguay,  Slovenia,  Spain, 
South Africa.
Group C
 Brazil,  China,  Costa Rica,  Turkey.
Group D
 Poland,  Portugal,
South Korea,  United States.
Korea First Round Matches.
In Japan
Group E
 Cameroon, Germany,  Republic of Ireland, 
Saudi Arabia.
Group F
 Argentina,  England,  Nigeria,  Sweden.
Group G
 Croatia,  Ecuador,  Italy,  Mexico.
Group H
 Belgium,  Japan,  Russia,  Tunisia.
Japan First Round Matches.
2002 World Cup Finals - Knockout Stage.
Group Tables - Leading Goalscorers.
Please take a moment to like
us on Facebook and share
with your friends on social
media.
|
