ID :
190777
Fri, 06/24/2011 - 00:48
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https://oananews.org//node/190777
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S. Korea advances in Olympic football qualification
AMMAN (Yonhap) - South Korea on Thursday advanced to the third and final round of the regional Olympic football qualification, despite a 1-1 draw against Jordan here.
Substitute Hong Chul scored the second-half equalizer for South Korea and gave the visiting side a 4-2 advantage in the aggregate score in the home-and-away series. South Korea had taken the first leg in Seoul 3-1 last Sunday.
South Korea is trying to reach its seventh straight Olympics next year in London, and make its ninth overall appearance at the quadrennial competition.
For the second straight game, Jordan opened the scoring as Hamza Ali Khaled Aldaradreh found the net just before half time, with South Korea once again sloppy and careless on the defensive end.
South Korea created more opportunities in the opening half. Forward Kim Dong-sub, who scored in the first leg as a second-half substitute, missed two chances from point-blank range.
Kim was replaced by Hong to begin the second half, and it turned out to be a shrewd move by head coach Hong Myung-bo.
In the 70th, Hong took a pass from Kim Min-woo and dribbled to just inside the box, before curling one past Abdallah Fayiz Abdallah Al Zubi to the far side.
Each team had chances to go ahead later in the match. In the 74th, Ji Dong-won, who's about to join Sunderland in the English Premier League, launched one from the top of the arc and forced Al Zubi to make a diving save.
Three minutes later, Mohammad Saeed Hasan Almurjan nearly gave the home team a lead, but his header went off the crossbar.
Twenty-four teams competed in the second round. The 12 winners of the second round will be paired into three groups of four in the third round.
Only the top-ranked countries from those three groups will secure automatic berths to the London Games, while the winner of a three-way playoff among No. 2 seeds will enter an international playoff for a final chance to qualify.
South Korea has never won a football medal at the quadrennial competition. It has made it out of the first round only twice in eight appearances overall.
Substitute Hong Chul scored the second-half equalizer for South Korea and gave the visiting side a 4-2 advantage in the aggregate score in the home-and-away series. South Korea had taken the first leg in Seoul 3-1 last Sunday.
South Korea is trying to reach its seventh straight Olympics next year in London, and make its ninth overall appearance at the quadrennial competition.
For the second straight game, Jordan opened the scoring as Hamza Ali Khaled Aldaradreh found the net just before half time, with South Korea once again sloppy and careless on the defensive end.
South Korea created more opportunities in the opening half. Forward Kim Dong-sub, who scored in the first leg as a second-half substitute, missed two chances from point-blank range.
Kim was replaced by Hong to begin the second half, and it turned out to be a shrewd move by head coach Hong Myung-bo.
In the 70th, Hong took a pass from Kim Min-woo and dribbled to just inside the box, before curling one past Abdallah Fayiz Abdallah Al Zubi to the far side.
Each team had chances to go ahead later in the match. In the 74th, Ji Dong-won, who's about to join Sunderland in the English Premier League, launched one from the top of the arc and forced Al Zubi to make a diving save.
Three minutes later, Mohammad Saeed Hasan Almurjan nearly gave the home team a lead, but his header went off the crossbar.
Twenty-four teams competed in the second round. The 12 winners of the second round will be paired into three groups of four in the third round.
Only the top-ranked countries from those three groups will secure automatic berths to the London Games, while the winner of a three-way playoff among No. 2 seeds will enter an international playoff for a final chance to qualify.
South Korea has never won a football medal at the quadrennial competition. It has made it out of the first round only twice in eight appearances overall.
