South Korea lost 1-0 to South Africa on Thursday Seoul time and will have to wait and see if it progresses to the Round of 32. After another poor display in Group A, if the Reds do end up going home then the team will not be missed by anyone at the World Cup. Needing just a point to finish second, Korea was unable to do so and now has to depend on other results to see if it can progress as one of the best third place teams. It should never have come to this. Coach Hong Myung-bo should thank Mexico as it could have been a lot worse. The host was already certain of top spot but still managed to defeat the Czech Republic. Had the Europeans won then Korea would be bottom. Thapelo Masako scored for South Africa, ranked 61 and 38 places below Korea, just after the hour to send the team into the knockout stages for the first time. Korea just didn’t have the imagination to do anything about it against a weaker opponent. More and more that 2-1 win over the Czechs in the opening game looks like it was because of the weakness of the European team than anything else. Against the Africans Son Heung-mi
