Since the 2002 World Cup, many fans around the world have been looking forward to such a group situation: the South Korean team and Italy, Spain, Portugal are divided together, let these world's strong teams teach a good lesson, without the help of "referees" under the Taiji tiger, is the real tiger or the sick cat.
Indeed, at the World Cup in South Korea and Japan, the performance of Korean football was very embarrassing in front of the world. For the sake of results, they did not hesitate to use the referee's favorable penalty to beat Portugal, Italy and Spain respectively. As many as three good goals were scored by the opponent and then judged to be invalid. The opponent was sent off with a red card, and it also reached three! South Korea finished fourth in the World Cup, but seemed to lose a lot.
Of course, a little should also be seen. Even the strength of Korean football in the last century is indeed good. Strong ability, can not run, coupled with some external forces to boost, so that good results have been achieved. If you change a team, no matter how you play the game, it is estimated that you will not be able to play such a result as the Korean team.
In that World Cup, the Korean team that impressed fans the most should be South Korea's "Beckham" Ahn Jung-hwan. It should be said that An Zhenhuan's level is the top in Asia, and he has performed well in the K League, J League, Serie A, etc., and has scored a lot of goals. Even after coming to the Chinese Super League in his thirties, he still scored 18 goals in three seasons. When he left Dalian, the fans filled the stadium and sent him blessings.
Of course, the topic that Ahn Jung-hwan had to mention was that because when facing Italy, he scored a deadly goal and was boycotted by Perugia, which could only interrupt the Serie A journey. However, Ahn Jung-hwan, who is very determined in his bones, may be related to the hard life of his childhood: this young and miserable shadow striker, who chose football in order to eat the milk and bread subsidized by the sports team, also stimulated his full potential.
During Serie A, italians at the time generally believed that the standard of living in South Korea was very poor. The gambling angry Ahn Jung-hwan, one of the things he does after training every day, is to spend wildly and prove to the people around him that Koreans have money! For this reason, he spent all his annual salary in a season in Serie A. After being expelled from Perugia, Ahn Jung-hwan even tried to return to Europe, going to Ligue 1 Metz and Bundesliga Duisburg to heal this breath.