![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/koreaWC_czechs.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s that time every four years, where large swaths of the world suddenly becomes experts in futbol, and everyone is talking about the World Cup as if they\u2019ve been paying attention to global soccer on the regular and not just what ESPN has been Cliff\u2019s notes-ing for everyone over the previous week.<\/span><\/p>\n Obviously, I\u2019m no expert myself, but I\u2019m innately aware of who\u2019s good, who\u2019s that second and below tiers where simply winning a match or two, or even getting out of groups is sufficient enough, and enough to remotely believe I can fill out a competitive bracket at my office\u2019s pool.<\/span><\/p>\n Anyway, Korea was lucky enough to get real action on the official Day 1 of the World Cup, and it was what I felt was a winnable game against Czechia.\u00a0 And despite the dreadful 0-1 deficit that Korea fell into early in the second half, they got their shit together, scored twice, and came away from day 1 with a critical W, much to my elated delight.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s no secret that I\u2019m a sports fan of a pretty wide variety, and when the day is over, I\u2019m always happy with a win from the Braves, Virginia Tech sports, and other athletic organizations that catch my fancy at various times.\u00a0 But few things ignite a level of elation in my sports fandom than Korea, be it in baseball, professional League of Legends<\/em>, and of course, futbol.<\/span><\/p>\n Needless to say, I was quite thrilled with Korea\u2019s match 1 win against the Czechs, because in the grand spectrum that is the World Cup, each individual team doesn\u2019t play that many matches, unless they advance deep into the tournament, and usually that distinction is reserved for a small number of national teams despite the fact that there are 48 countries represented.<\/span><\/p>\n Realistically, I do believe that Korea can get out of the group stage, and depending on the draw for the round of 32, a Hail Mary\u2019s chance of 16.\u00a0 But more than likely no more than that, so any win is worth celebrating, if there\u2019s only going to be 3-5 games for my boys.<\/span><\/p>\n Anyway, how about my boy Hwang In-beom???\u00a0 Man gave a stop and juke that would have made peak Allen Iverson stop and clap<\/a>, en route to lofting the critical equalizer and bring hope back to Korea.\u00a0 And when Oh Hyeon-gyu delivered the eventual game winner, it was ecstasy.<\/span><\/p>\n Frankly, this iteration of Korean futbol that we witnessed against the Czechs was so refreshing and exciting, and it gives me hope for their future.\u00a0 The aggression and the attacking of their opponents was so unlike all versions of Korean futbol of the past<\/a>, that relied so heavily on defense, stamina and counter attacking.<\/span><\/p>\n It was so fun and like I said, refreshing, to see Korea on the offense, putting pressure on the Czechs, and they have a level of touch and passing precision that just seems to different from Team Koreas in the past.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think this is going to immediately make them world beaters like they were in 2002* but it definitely looks like it puts them into a tier above a lot of the lower-tier teams I\u2019ve seen in some of the other matches I\u2019ve watched.<\/span><\/p>\n *as exciting and memorable as 2002\u2019s run was, I\u2019d be remiss to not acknowledge the tremendous amount of referee assistance Korea enjoyed<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s going to be interesting for the rest of groups, considering I will be in Korea for at least the next match, which is against Mexico. Circling back to 2002, it was one of the best memories of my life going to watch parties with my dad, in parking lots in Annandale in the middle of the night, since the games were in Korea.\u00a0 I\u2019ll definitely be on the lookout for watch parties in Seoul in the am hours to compensate for the opposite time change, with Team Korea playing in Guadalajara, against host Mexico.<\/span><\/p>\n And shout out to all the Korean fans who ventured over to Mexico, and the Mexican fans who have welcomed them all with open arms and gracious hospitality.\u00a0 I love that it\u2019s these two cultures, who have developed one of the most beautiful cultural bromances, showing the rest of the world what world peace could look like.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Even thought they\u2019re opponents next, I really hope the friendship continues on, because win, lose or draw, it\u2019s what world needs, what people need to see, and a great demonstration of the positive power of sport.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s that time every four years, where large swaths of the world suddenly becomes experts in futbol, and everyone is talking about the World Cup as if they\u2019ve been paying attention to global soccer on the regular and not just what ESPN has been Cliff\u2019s notes-ing for everyone over the previous week. Obviously, I\u2019m no … Continue reading O PILSUNG COREA, MOTHERFUCKERS<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[100,164,22,103,129,83,99,58],"class_list":["post-51287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-comparison","tag-futbol","tag-mexicans","tag-motherland","tag-nostalgia","tag-observations","tag-reminiscing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51289,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51287\/revisions\/51289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![Allen Iverson stop and clap<\/a>, en route to lofting the critical equalizer and bring hope back to Korea.\u00a0 And when Oh Hyeon-gyu delivered the eventual game winner, it was ecstasy.<\/span><\/p>\nFrankly, this iteration of Korean futbol that we witnessed against the Czechs was so refreshing and exciting, and it gives me hope for their future.\u00a0 The aggression and the attacking of their opponents was so unlike all versions of Korean futbol of the past<\/a>, that relied so heavily on defense, stamina and counter attacking.<\/span><\/p>\nIt was so fun and like I said, refreshing, to see Korea on the offense, putting pressure on the Czechs, and they have a level of touch and passing precision that just seems to different from Team Koreas in the past.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think this is going to immediately make them world beaters like they were in 2002* but it definitely looks like it puts them into a tier above a lot of the lower-tier teams I\u2019ve seen in some of the other matches I\u2019ve watched.<\/span><\/p>\n*as exciting and memorable as 2002\u2019s run was, I\u2019d be remiss to not acknowledge the tremendous amount of referee assistance Korea enjoyed<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nIt\u2019s going to be interesting for the rest of groups, considering I will be in Korea for at least the next match, which is against Mexico. Circling back to 2002, it was one of the best memories of my life going to watch parties with my dad, in parking lots in Annandale in the middle of the night, since the games were in Korea.\u00a0 I\u2019ll definitely be on the lookout for watch parties in Seoul in the am hours to compensate for the opposite time change, with Team Korea playing in Guadalajara, against host Mexico.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd shout out to all the Korean fans who ventured over to Mexico, and the Mexican fans who have welcomed them all with open arms and gracious hospitality.\u00a0 I love that it\u2019s these two cultures, who have developed one of the most beautiful cultural bromances, showing the rest of the world what world peace could look like.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nEven thought they\u2019re opponents next, I really hope the friendship continues on, because win, lose or draw, it\u2019s what world needs, what people need to see, and a great demonstration of the positive power of sport.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s that time every four years, where large swaths of the world suddenly becomes experts in futbol, and everyone is talking about the World Cup as if they\u2019ve been paying attention to global soccer on the regular and not just what ESPN has been Cliff\u2019s notes-ing for everyone over the previous week. Obviously, I\u2019m no … Continue reading O PILSUNG COREA, MOTHERFUCKERS<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[100,164,22,103,129,83,99,58],"class_list":["post-51287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-comparison","tag-futbol","tag-mexicans","tag-motherland","tag-nostalgia","tag-observations","tag-reminiscing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51289,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51287\/revisions\/51289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/i.gifer.com\/UT1.gif\"){kind=link}