By With a draw like this, I don’t think it is going to be 2002 all over again for the South Korean World Cup team:
South Korea has been drawn with Argentina, Nigeria and Greece in Group B at next year’s World Cup in South Africa.
The Korean team will open the tournament with Greece at 11 p.m. on June 12 (KST) Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth and then meet Argentina at 3:30 a.m. on June 18 at Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg and Nigeria at 3:30 a.m. on June 23 at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban.
It is the first time since 1986 for the Asian country not to meet two European teams in the group stage.
Unlike the kind draw for the Huh Jung-moo’s side, other Asian representatives have faced strong opponents.
North Korea has been drawn into the toughest pool with football powerhouses Brazil, Portugal and Cote d’Ivoire in Group G, while Japan will play the Netherlands, Denmark and Cameroon in Group E.
Australia belongs to Group D with Germany, Serbia and Ghana.
Eighth-ranked Argentina, headed by Diego Maradona, is a 15-time qualifier and two-time World Cup winner in 1978 and 1986.
The Nigerian team, sitting 22th in the FIFA rankings, has reached the four World Cup finals in 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2010 and its best finish was two second-round appearances.
No. 12 Greece, the Euro 2004 champion, just appeared in the 1994 event, where it crashed out. [Korea Times]
3:51 am on December 5th, 2009 1
With any luck, Nigeria will defeat them, not that I care about soccer, it's the principal.
9:50 am on December 5th, 2009 2
Not to worry about S.Korea. We will advance to the round of 16 by beating Argentina and Greece.
This will make so many English teachers hopping mad, angry, and bitter for the next trillion years.
10:52 am on December 5th, 2009 3
Be the Red!
Cote d' Ivoire is going to win it anyway.
12:50 pm on December 5th, 2009 4
The only way Korea will advance is if they fix the matches like in 2002. One wonders what the going rate is to fix matches. I am sure Korea can afford it. It might be harder to fix matches outside of the homeland. We have seen in subsequent international soccer, that it was either a fluke or match fixing that led to Korea's success in 2002. In a country known for price fixing and corruption, is it possible that matching fixing occurred? You be the judge.
1:47 pm on December 5th, 2009 5
You are the one to talk. You are from a country that has basically ripped off tens of billions of dollars from unsuspecting investors, in the name of Bernard Madoff. You are from the same country that has a pyramid scheme called the Wall Street which pay themselves big billion dollar bonuses after a giant government bail out. Also you are from a country that starts up wars in the Middle East by making up phony evidences against tin pot dictators, and ends up killing thousands of innocent women and children. Who the hell are you to say someone else is corrupt? That's funny.
3:43 pm on December 5th, 2009 6
ok thomas…im not from that country (and not that it has anything to do with his original post but i cant resist), and i still say korea cheated. what now? does that make it ok to make that comment? or do you, once you decide where i live, look and discover someone somewhere cheated near my home or that my country of birth was involved in a war you dont agree with? or how about this: you can just hate all modern financial institutions like stock mkts (hell, why not condemn banking too and we can all go back to cows as a medium of exchange and let gunslingers work out the rules) …and …when your done your gr 8 hate paper…then you can post all that hate on a blog that is currently talking about the world cup…gd ppl are losers on these things…
anyway, back to wc2010:
group b (i think) is fairly easy if you look at how the teams qualified as an indicator (rather than fifa rankings which give points to teams for games played…the funny thing is that every team that was too shit to qualify right away ended up playing extra games and getting points (and moving up the chart as a result)…i love the irony…
so:
-greece in a qualifier (ony even in qualifier because they beat out powerhouses like moldova, israel, and other shmucks in the easiest euro pool in history)
-arg. had to beat uraguay on the lasy day of qualifying to make it (finishing well behind chile and otehrs)
-nigeria…please…ill give ivory coast props, and even ghana, but nigeria are awful
-group b also plays group a in the rnd of 16 (group a being equally easy since france currently suks and had too do a bit of cheatin (sic) themselves to beat rep. of ireland to qualify)…
even more to koreas benefit is that group b plays group a in the rnd of 16–and group a have an equally sad complement of teams (france: playing their worst ball in years; mexico couldnt even beat trindad tobago recently and finished behind usa in qualifying; sa, oh my god they are terrible; and uruguay, who had to beat costa rica in a playoff to make it—yuck)
8:28 pm on December 5th, 2009 7
SA got a pretty soft draw. They'll have quite a few things go there way. I also expect Smiling Mandela to officiate for them in the 2nd round.
1:10 am on December 7th, 2009 8
I hope Korea loses.
2:07 am on December 7th, 2009 9
Not me, I hate soccer. Of course, it's possible for korea to buy it's way through.
koreans did buy theselves a Nobel Prize afterall!
2:10 am on December 7th, 2009 10
Well, according the corruption index, korea is more corrupt than the US and Japan. koreans would never believe such a thing though.