Ineffective Korea humbled in 1-0 loss to Morocco

With barely a whimper of resistance, Korea played themselves out of the 2023 Women’s World Cup on Sunday, falling to pieces in what should have been an easy game against Morocco to end 1-0 down without a single shot on goal.

From left: Korea's Chun Ga-ram, Casey Phair, Ji So-yun and Moon Mi-ra react after the final whistle of a Women's World Cup Group H match between Korea and Morocco in Hindmarsh, Australia on Sunday. [AP/YONHAP]

With barely a whimper of resistance, Korea played themselves out of the 2023 Women’s World Cup on Sunday, falling to pieces in what should have been an easy game against Morocco to end 1-0 down without a single shot on goal.

That 1-0 loss at Hindmarsh Stadium in Hindmarsh, Australia, underscores what has been a humiliatingly poor campaign for Korea, who arrived at the World Cup as the second-highest ranked team in Group H and are increasingly likely to leave Australia at the bottom of the group as one of these least-successful teams in the competition.

Sunday’s 1-0 loss against world No. 72 Morocco follows a 2-0 defeat at the hands of No. 25 Colombia for No. 17 Korea, who now only have tournament favorites and world No. 2 Germany to face next Thursday.

Technically — in a purely mathematical sense — Korea are still in the competition as of press time Sunday. With Germany, Colombia and Morocco all on three points apiece, at this point it is still theoretically possible for Korea to get back into the game.

By Monday morning, that will very likely no longer be the case.

The only way for Korea to stay alive in the World Cup at this stage would be for Colombia to not only beat Germany on Sunday evening, but for Korea — yet to score a goal against two lower-ranked teams — to then beat Germany on Thursday by a margin of more than six goals.

Assuming Colombia then also beat Morocco, that would leave Colombia on nine points with everybody else on three and Korea in second place on goal difference. Assuming that extremely unlikely scenario does not come to pass, Korea’s World Cup journey ended in Hindmarsh.

And that end came painfully fast. It took just six minutes for Morocco to exploit Korea’s sloppy defense on Sunday, with Hanane Ait El Haj heading in the country’s first-ever World Cup goal.

Things quickly descended into farce for the Taeguk Ladies. Clearly taken aback by the unexpected early goal, Korea struggled to regroup throughout the rest of the first half. The defense and midfield were disjointed, with every ball fed through from the back quickly lost to an imposing player.

It was a particularly painful swansong for Korea’s so-called golden generation, who completely failed to acquit themselves well in what may be one of their final national team games.

Veteran midfielder Cho So-hyun, one of Korea’s most-capped players of all time, failed to capitalize on any opportunity, frequently giving the ball away or mistiming her passes.

Striker Park Eun-sun, favored by Bell in recent months, was equally ineffective, mistiming her touches or sending the ball far wide of the mark and struggling to display the speed or agility needed to follow through.

Even Ji So-yun, the talismanic star of the national team and Korea’s highest goal scorer, failed to impress. Where normally she provides bursts of speed and moments of agility, Ji struggled to break through the aggressive marking and was unable to get a single real shot off. Captain Kim Hye-ri did not fare much better.

Some help came from the slightly younger legs. Choe Yu-ri and Moon Mi-ra, both second half substitutions, at least added a bit of energy to the game, even if they proved just as ineffectual as their teammates.

Casey Phair, on for just the final 10 minutes of the game, had a few moments of excitement but ultimately did not get enough playing time to do anything serious.

In the end, Korea walk away from what was supposed to be the easiest game of the tournament with the majority of the possession and 14 shots, but not a single one on target and nothing to show for it. Instead they have a deeply humiliating 1-0 loss and, most likely, a long, quiet flight home.

Once the dust settles on Korea’s World Cup journey — and assuming Colombia and Korea don’t pull off consecutive shock wins against Germany — there will be some serious questions to answer over who is to blame for the performance of Korea at not just this World Cup, but also the 2019 tournament where the team lost all three group stage games.

The easy target will be head coach Colin Bell, who has led the team since just after the 2019 World Cup, but it’s difficult to determine just how much blame can actually fall at the feet of the English manager. Some decisions could certainly be called into question — his overreliance on older players and late substitutions, to name a couple — but ultimately Bell is just working with the players he has available.

More questions should instead be leveled at the Korea Football Association.

The underinvestment in football in Korea — the WK League is virtually unknown here and that is unlikely to change any time soon, with many games played in the middle of the afternoon on weekdays — is an increasingly acute problem, and the efforts of players like Ji, who willingly sacrificed her own Chelsea career to raise the profile of the sport here, need more support to improve the game.

Until there is a bigger commitment to women’s football in general, the national team will continue to pay the price. Bell only gets the players for a few weeks a year — it’s what they are doing the rest of time and what level of support and facilities they get then that makes a bigger difference. Until that issue is resolved, it's difficult to see how Korean football can move forward.

But before those questions can be answered, Korea will first have to take to the pitch one more time in Australia as they take on Germany at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane at 8 p.m. on Thursday, or 7 p.m. in Korea.

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