(News Focus) S. Korea left to do soul searching following early exit from FIFA Women's World Cup

By Yoo Jee-ho

SEOUL, Aug. 4 (Yonhap) -- In suffering yet another early exit from the FIFA Women's World Cup, South Korean players couldn't make their own bold prediction come true.

On July 6, about three weeks before South Korea's first match of the big tournament in Australia, the Korea Football Association (KFA) released the results of a survey on 31 players who took part in the final training camp before the big tournament.

Of those 31, 16 players said they expected to reach the quarterfinals, while 12 others said they felt the team was good enough to make at least the semifinals. Three remaining players said their goal was to make it to the round of 16. Not one player said South Korea would be eliminated in the group stage.

Everyone was proven wrong, as South Korea finished last in Group H with one point. South Korea have now played at four Women's World Cups and reached the knockouts only once.

South Korea lost to Colombia 2-0 and then to Morocco 1-0. They held world No. 2 Germany to a 1-1 draw in their final group match on Thursday, salvaging a point on their way out of Australia and knocking the European giants out of the competition as well.

Getting to the quarterfinals was always going to be a tall task, regardless of the players' own hype. But with the reigning Olympic champions Canada and perennial contenders Brazil and Germany crashing out early, going home after the group stage is a missed opportunity for South Korea.

South Korea came into the tournament ranked 17th in the world, higher than six of the 16 teams that made the knockouts.

Head coach Colin Bell, who took over the program in October 2019, spoke throughout tournament about the need to overhaul the domestic league, which is the biggest pool of talent for the national team, so that players would become physically and mentally tougher. The Englishman has been a drill sergeant in training camps, running famously brutal conditioning drills that have caused some players to throw up from sheer amounts of sprinting.

Bell tried to whip his players into shape, so they could sustain a consistent level of play in late moments. It only paid off against Germany, and Bell, who is signed through the 2024 Paris Olympics, said the work is far from done.

"I'm an intense coach and that's not always easy for the players to deal with. But I know what international football needs and I know what we need back in Korea," Bell said. "We need to be mentally much, much stronger and we need more competition. They need to be put into these kinds of stress situations more often and turn it into a positive and embrace the challenge."

Against Colombia, South Korea controlled the run of play but then conceded a penalty in the 30th minute after an opponent's shot went off defender Shim Seo-yeon's arm in the box. Colombia doubled their lead nine minutes later, leaving South Korea to play catch-up the rest of the way.

Pundits singled out Morocco, world No. 72 making their World Cup debut, as the one beatable team for 17th-ranked South Korea in Group H. But Morocco scored just six minutes in, and South Korea managed to put only one shot out of 16 total attempts on target as their comeback bid fell flat.

Entering the final group match against Germany on Thursday, South Korea somehow still had a chance to advance to the knockouts. South Korea had to defeat Germany by at least five goals and have Colombia beat Morocco on the same day.

Though neither happened -- South Korea held Germany and Morocco blanked Colombia 1-0 -- the Taegeuk Ladies at least ended the competition on an encouraging note.

For the first time in their Women's World Cup history, South Korea scored the first goal of a match, courtesy of Cho So-hyun in the sixth minute. Germany drew level on Alexandra Popp's header in the 42nd minute, but South Korea kept the Europeans at bay the rest of the way with some dogged defense.

Cho, 35, said the hard-fought draw against one of the best teams sent an important message to a younger generation of players.

"I think this match instilled confidence in players who will play at future World Cups and got them thinking, 'If these girls can do it, we can do it, too,'" Cho said. "I hope teenage players who watched this match learned about the trend of international football and where we should be headed."

This World Cup signaled an end of an era for South Korean women's football. Cho and the 32-year-old midfielder Ji So-yun might have played their final World Cup. The same can be said for the 36-year-old forward Park Eun-seon and the 38-year-old goalkeeper Kim Jung-mi, both of whom made their World Cup debuts in 2003.

South Korea were the oldest team at this year's World Cup with an average age of 29. And that was with the 16-year-old forward Casey Yujin Phair in the fold.

Phair, born to a South Korean mother and an American father, acquitted herself well at her first World Cup. When she subbed in against Colombia, Phair became the youngest player in World Cup history at 16 years and 26 days. Phair started against Germany and almost scored her first goal just three minutes after the kickoff, when her shot went off the fingertips of the goalkeeper Merle Frohms and hit the right goal post.

"I think I was very proud of myself and the team for finally showing who we are as a country and the team and for pushing through despite the first two games that were tough and still coming out with the result against such a good team," Phair said Thursday. "I was nervous during warm-ups but I think the words from both the players and the coaches really got me amped up. I was able to block out the external factors and just focus on the game."

Bell said he started both Phair and the 20-year-old winger Chun Garam against Germany because "I wanted to show and prove that we have talented players and also to give them that experience against a top team."

Phair, who previously played for South Korea's under-17 national team, said being with the senior squad has been "a really great experience."

"I feel like I've gotten more mature and learned more about the game, especially being with an older group of teammates," she said. "I think it's just been a really great experience and very good season."

With Phair and Chun on the rise, Bell said it's time to start planning for a better future for South Korean football.

"Looking at the future, we have to, as far as I'm concerned, build a new team," Bell said Thursday. "There were a lot of players in the mid-30s but they gave everything today. So they also showed again and proved to everybody that they can still do it. But we need now to refocus. We need to have a look at the infrastructure. We need to look at the system in Korea, how we can maximize the amount of girls actually playing football and obviously then in different areas become more professional, if you can say it like that.

"For me now, it could be an exciting time for South Korea and for the KFA, if we make the right decisions," Bell went on. "But we need to make certain decisions to secure the future of South Korean football."

jeeho@yna.co.kr
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