South Korea national football team

The Korea Republic national football team (, ) represents Korea Republic (South Korea) in international football and is controlled by the Korea Football Association. Korea Republic is the most successful Asian football team in the history of the FIFA World Cup having participated in eight World Cup tournaments, which is the most amount of appearances for an Asian country. Korea Republic became the first and only Asian team to reach the semi-final stages, at the 2002 tournament, and also won the first two editions of the AFC Asian Cup.

History

South Korea has emerged as a major football power in Asia, winning several prestigious Asian football championships, including the first two Asian Cup tournaments. The South Korean national team has also played in seven consecutive World Cup finals (from 1986), making a total of eight World Cup finals in all.

In their first World Cup finals tournament, the 1954 World Cup as the second Asian team to ever enter the World Cup after the Dutch East Indies, South Korea played games against Hungary and Turkey, losing 9–0 and 7–0 respectively. It took 32 years before South Korea were able to participate in the World Cup finals again, when they qualified for the 1986 World Cup held in Mexico City.

They lost 3–1 to Argentina, drew 1–1 with Bulgaria, and lost 3–2 to Italy.

This difficult streak held until the 2002 FIFA World Cup (which it co-hosted with Japan), in which the South Korean national team earned many wins and finished fourth...
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