In the final game of the group stage against South Korea, Portugal took a 1-0 lead even though they changed some of their starters and Portugal sat out the game. From there, Ronaldo should have been cleared, but he created an own goal assist to help South Korea equalize with a goal.
Throughout the group stage, almost all of the Asian light Premier League Golden Boot winner Son Heung-yi was completely lost due to injuries. In the end, South Korea won the match by beating Spain 2-1, getting 3 points out of 3. Even though Uruguay beat Ghana 2-0, Uruguay trailed Korea in goals scored (Korea 4 and Uruguay 2). In the end, South Korea beat Uruguay by 4 points to finish second in the group and Portugal advanced.
After all the group matches, the Qatar World Cup saw the first world records in its history. They are:
1. This World Cup, Australia . For the first time in history, three AFC teams, Japan and South Korea, advanced to the knockout rounds.
2. According to espn, this is the first time in the history of the World Cup that more than two AFC teams and two non-AFC teams have made it out of the group.
The 5 spending lines of this World Cup's non-football federation . AFL Australia . Japan . South Korea. Senegal. Morocco.
It is fair to say that both AFC and NFC are underdogs in world soccer, which is basically a European and South American world. However, thanks to the efforts of the fans and players of Asian and African countries, their national soccer teams are gradually growing and reaching their peak this term. Asian and African soccer are no longer mermaid soccer teams, but enemies that cannot be underestimated. They overcame the economic/racial disparity through their own efforts and gradually narrowed down their enemies with the world's strongest teams. This perseverance is truly admirable.
On the contrary, if you look at the national soccer team, in 2002, the national soccer team could even be in the top 32 of the World Cup and could play against Japanese soccer for a long time. However, it all came to nothing. While Asian and African soccer has been growing in strength, Chinese soccer has not only failed to improve its strength, it has been slipping. Before that, it lost to Vietnam, and even the Beijing Guoan team lost to the Prefecture. Although Beijing Guoan is not the main team, it shows the tragedy of the national soccer team.
What is even more chilling is the recent incident in which Li Tie, the former head coach of the men's national soccer team, was arrested for allegedly earning as much as $168 million in irregularities, followed by a number of players taking part in fake matches. When Japan and South Korea, who are also yellow, try to improve themselves, when poor African soccer tries to close the gap with European and American soccer; when Chinese soccer is playing so poorly, instead of trying to play well, we should cheat and gamble to make money. There is really no hope for this environment.
It also inevitably reminds people of the previous provincial games u15 soccer, as underage kids they used to play soccer as hard as they could and win the championship, but after that, the coaching change and the players' attitude towards the defense was obviously fake, which made the public furious and at one time rushed to the popular searches. You know, even underage kids who want to play soccer as hard as they can can only succumb to reality, so how does Chinese soccer progress?
