I was watching this week's 특종 놀라운 세상, and they were telling a story about the Korean team in 54 WC in Swiss. Not too long after the war was over. 22 players were gathered to join World Cup, they left Seoul and it took them a day to get to Busan, then they flew to Tokyo from Busan. Squad never made any kind of reservation for the plane (never flown before). Only 13 tickets were available so first 13 got on the plane to Swiss and the rest decided find different routes to Swiss. I forgot how many days but it was about 7 days from Japan to Swiss. From Hong Kong to BangKok to Iran etc etc. Players really had no idea what time or when the tournament was starting. When they arrived it was 10 hours before the tournament began. They fixed up their own shoes and sewed their own numbers to their jerseys. Then the first opponent Hungary had a press conference and they claimed they could finish the game in first 10 minutes scoring 5 goals. Then the Korean players heard the news and became furious. Then the players decided to hold their ground no matter what for first 10 minutes. (BTW Hungary was probabaly the strongest team back then and had ability to score a goal within first 10 minutes against any team ). Korean players did everything they can on defense and Hungary's goal did not come till 12th minute. haha LoL I thought the story was pretty funny but think about 9 days of traveling
Well that Hungarian side of the early 50s was as good as Austria's Wunder team of the 30s. Funny how we didn't get squashed 20-0 in that match.
I was watching this program and the modern Hungarians were complementing the Korean team of how dedicated they were on the field, regardless of the struggle they took to get there. Supposedly, we didn't even have the video of the game since we were so limited in money. So then the Hungarians gave the Koreans a film roll of the game, recently.
That Hungarian side had that legendary player named Puskas playing for them. They beat West Germany 8-3 (not a typo) in the group stage and they faced West Germany in the final again but lost it 3-2.
I think he scored more goals than any other striker except for ali daei Many thanks to YCashMoney42 for posting this story. I'm always interested to learn more about Korea's first time playing in the World Cup. Can you imagine what those players had experienced during the Korean War? It reminds me of the Angolan NT who is playing in the WC for the first time after tons of internal strife. I heard that the players had never played on grass before but that was just from another post on this forum. If anyone has more info, please share it!
Whenever I see stories like this, it amazes me how far we as a nation have come. But what really impresses me is how much pride our forefathers had in our country and to what extent they were willing to go to represent Korea despite the difficult circumstances. Anyway, I love stories like this. It reminds me of Cool Running.
Well worth a read: Korea at the World Cup: 1954 by Tim Lee http://www.taegukwarriors.com/korea-at-the-world-cup-1954/