Ji So-yun takes Tscha Bum's crown as Korea rout Mongolia

The Korean women's football team smashed through Mongolia for an emphatic 12-0 win on Friday that saw Chelsea star Ji So-yun overtake Cha Bum-kun to become the highest-scoring national team player of all time.

Ji So-yun [YONHAP]

The Korean women's football team smashed through Mongolia for an emphatic 12-0 win on Friday that saw Chelsea star Ji So-yun overtake Cha Bum-kun to become the highest-scoring national team player of all time.

Ji was one of seven goal scorers, netting her 59th goal for Korea to overtake Korean footballing legend Cha, known as Tscha Bum, as Korea’s all-time leading goal scorer across all teams, all divisions, all genders and all competitions.

Ji’s coronation as the queen of Korean football didn’t come until the 35th minute, by which point Korea were already up 4-0.

Choo Hyo-joo opened the scoring in the fourth minute, with Tottenham’s Cho So-hyun adding a second in the 24th minute, Brighton’s Lee Geum-min scoring in the 30th and Lee Min-a adding one more in the 32nd.

Choo and Lee Geum-min each scored one more in the first half to take Korea into the break up 7-0.

The onslaught didn’t stop after the break, with Cho picking up one more and Moon Mi-ra netting a hat-trick in just 22 minutes. A single from Park Yee-un completed the rout and put the score at 12-0.

Korea scored their first goal at four minutes and their last at 89 minutes, spreading the onslaught evenly across almost the full 90 minutes.

Korea currently lead Group E in the 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup qualifiers. They will next face Uzbekistan at 8 p.m. on Thursday. Only the winner of the three-team group will advance to the Women’s Asian Cup, which serves as a qualifier for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]