Anti-climax; Korea vs. Turkey 2002

This match was notable for really only two things; it represented the highest position ever recorded in an international tournament by Turkey, and it was the match which produced the fastest goal ever scored in a World Cup match.

To be honest, whether Korea got 3rd or 4th place really didn’t matter at that point. They’d more than proven their mettle, but it was a good chance to show the world what good sports they were, by applauding Turkey’s equally fine performance in that tournament.

As I’d stated earlier, Korea was out of gas in their previous match against Germany, and though they tried to come back into the match, they never really had a chance. That first goal was a mental lapse, a sure sign that a team is in dreamland, and they were. They had every reason to be.

This led us up to the final match of the tournament, one I was pissed off to miss for being on an Air Canada flight back home.

What I missed in Korea over the next five months as I traipsed through Europe and visited friends was a spectacular overload of World Cup re-runs, understandable given the amazing accomplishments of the National Team, but unwanted in the extreme. “Every time you changed the channel,” according to my fiancee, “there was another fucking re-run. Get over it!”

When I returned to Korea in November, the goodwill energy was gone. Just another fad in a series of fads this country goes through on a regular basis. The original ‘make Korea beautiful’ campaign (the one about cleaning up garbage on the streets) stopped right as soon as the tournament was over. If this sounds like a slam against Korea, believe me, it’s not. I would be just as disillusioned had I been in Costa Rica or Indonesia and this had happened.

What will happen this summer is simply a matter of affirmation. Many Koreans want to believe that their team did what they did by merit, not by luck (or worse, by payoff), and in a country that’s plagued by corruption scandals in politics, business, enterainment, etc., that’s a big deal. I for one have a feeling they’ll acquit themselves admirably, but at the same time, find myself wishing for an early exit.

I won’t be able to take those goddamn re-runs anymore.