South Korea completed a miserable World Cup for Asia, becoming the fourth of four AFC representatives to go out in the group stages as they lost to a much-changed Belgium side that played half the game with 10 men after the dismissal of midfielder Steven Defour.
As it turned out, South Korea would have had to win by three goals to go through and that never seemed likely even before Jan Vertonghen followed in to score after the goalkeeper, Kim Seung-gyu, had beaten away a drive from the prodigious 19-year-old forward Divock Origi.
Belgium’s coach, Marc Wilmots, was clear, though, that Origi will not start the last-16 tie against USA.
“He’s only 19,” he said. “His body is not ready.”
Still, the Lille centre-forward, who had scored the winner against Russia, had rather more impact than Adnan Januzaj, who made his Belgium debut to end any thought he might turn out for Kosovo or, less probably, England.
There had been suggestions that Wilmots felt that Januzaj was lacking a little intensity in training, and this was not the most auspicious debut.
It was, admittedly, a fairly pedestrian performance all-round from a team that had already qualified, so it would be wrong to read too much into the Manchester United forward’s performance, but he was involved only fleetingly, a peripheral figure in every sense as he trotted up and down the right touchline. He was withdrawn to not great fanfare, or surprise, for Nacer Chadli just before the hour.
Belgium had seemed to be sauntering towards top spot in the group when, in the final minute of the first half, Defour jumped in as Kim Shin-wook went to ground and stamped on his shin. It was an incident both out of keeping with the game and inexplicable, but the Australian referee, Ben Williams, was surely right to show the red card.
Suddenly, for South Korea, there was a chance where previously there had merely been grouchy stalemate. They could not take it.
“It was my shortcomings as coach that caused this result,” said a grim-faced South Korea manager, Hong Myung-bo, who spent most of the post-match press-conference scratching his nose in apparent distress and deflecting comments about whether he would stay on as manager until next year’s Asian Cup.
South Korea showed more conviction than they had against Algeria, but seemed to have little game plan early on other than to run into the box and fall over, allowing Williams to showcase an increasingly irritated range of air-chopping that’s-not-a-foul hand gestures.
A frenetic opening yielded to a more composed approach and Ki Sung-yeung forced a fine low save from Belgium’s Chelsea goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois, with a 30-yard drive before Defour was forced to hack off the line as a cross was deflected towards his own goal by Mousa Dembélé.
The expected second-half charge from South Korea never really materialised, though.
Son Heung-min did hit the crossbar with a mishit cross that looped too high even for the 6ft 6in Courtois to reach. That was as close as they came and it was Belgium, finishing the game more strongly than they had begun it for the third match running, who had the better chances. Asia’s World Cup ended with barely a whimper.
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