How did that not go in? South Korea U19s hit all three pieces of woodwork in a row!

SOuth Korea

There are times when your team is denied a certain goal by the woodwork! But the South Koreans who were playing Vietnam in the Group C match of the AFC U19 Championship in Indonesia were not denied once, not twice, but thrice by the post in a matter of few seconds! One could confidently say that Lady Luck wasn’t on the Korean youngsters’ side at that point in time! 

The setting is the Patriot Chandrabhaga Stadium in Bekasi on Monday. South Korea U19s are taking on Vietnam U19s in a crucial group stage encounter. Korea who were held to a 1-1 draw by Australia in their opening game and then defeated Jordan 3-1 in the second knew that a win would send them into quarterfinals of the continental competition as the group toppers.

And they started in a commanding fashion as well. Korea came out of the blocks flying and were enjoying a good spell in the game threatening to score in any moment. However, Chung Jung-Yong’s boys were not going to have it that easy.

Eight minutes into the match and that is when the incident in the spotlight took place. It all started with a wayward clearance by Vietnamese defender Dung Quang Nho from near the byline. It fell kindly to South Korea’s Go Jae-Hyeon who set out on a mazy run in the direction of the Vietnam goal.

The Korean midfielder evaded one Vietnam defender reaching the edge of the box before playing the ball to Korea’s No 9 Oh Se-Hun who had his back to the goal. But the forward with an excellent first touch rolled the ball into his path and fired in a shot on the turn.

The low drive beat the Vietnamese goalkeeper Duong Tung Lam and rolled past him. But it was not to be. It was the right post that turned villain for Korea as the ball hit the inside of the woodwork before ricochetting across the goal and striking the left-side post of the goal!

The ball had no intention of going out of play as it rolled back into play, just a few yards in front of the goal line with the Vietnamese goalkeeper only getting up from the floor and Korea attacker Yim Jae-Hyeok closing in to tap in into an open goal!

Surely, this time it was going to be the opener! But NO! Jae-Hyeok, with the goal gaping, sidefooted the ball into the crossbar and back into play for Vietnamese defender to clear and for South Koreans to ponder how they weren’t 1-0 ahead!

But the Koreans seemed to have taken that misfortune very badly as they were soon a goal down to Vietnam as Le Xuan Tu taught his opponents how to land the ball into the goal! And that too in supreme fashion.

But Koreans hadn’t learnt their lesson it seemed as they missed a golden opportunity to go level as Jeon Se-Jin missed from the penalty spot in the 31st minute! That literally went into the orbit!

However, there was still time left for Koreans. Vietnam had too much quality to deal with and they couldn’t. Cho Young-Wook equalised for Korea just before the halftime whistle and then Kim Hyun-Woo gave them the lead in the 77th minute. The icing on the cake came with a Young-Wook second, once again in the dying minutes of the half ensuring their passage to the quarterfinals as table toppers where they will face Tajkistan.

But that passage of play in the early minutes of their final Group C match will haunt them for a very long time! Good thing that it didn’t come back to bite them!