At the ninth World Cup in a row, South Korea does not forget the “heroes” losers

Nine consecutive World Cups is a streak that very few national teams can boast of. One of these is South Korea. It is no surprise, the Seoul team has been a constant presence since 1986 but due to a geopolitical short circuit it is the first participation ever, that of 1954, to have written the history of Korean football. Let’s talk about the World Cup in Switzerland: the world debut is the chronicle of an enterprise that still today unites myth and history, football and logistics, national pride and social redemption.

A story that begins with the arrival of football in Korea thanks to a British warship, the HMS Flying Fish, which was in the port of today’s Incheon. The impatient British sailors decided, to pass the time, to kick a football but, annoyed by the confined spaces of the pier, they sought a more suitable ground where they were chased away by the soldiers of the Joseon Kingdom. There they left behind two leather balls that were used by the first students who gave birth to Korean soccer. There are so many inconsistencies in this account, historians say that perhaps in 1882 the HMS Flying Fish was not docked there, but both the KFA and the Royal Navy over the years have given legitimacy to this series of events. Myth or not, decades pass and football becomes a serious matter: either for the simplicity of this sport, or for the distractions it allowed from the Japanese occupation.

Once the war was over, the national team made its debut in Hong Kong on 6 July 1948, winning 5-1, qualifying for the London Olympics. The movement didn’t have time to establish itself before it stopped due to the Korean conflict. There were no matches until 1953 but football had not been forgotten. When the South Korean team reunited in 1954, at the end of the civil war, fate drew Japan for a play-off that gave them a place at the Swiss World Cup.

A challenge within the challenge for a qualification that would not only have been a battle on the field, but also a logistical nightmare. While on the one hand the newborn South Korea, wounded and battered, was trying to grow, on the other Japan remained the big favorite for a qualification which, according to FIFA rules, had to be played between two legs. Then-President Syngman Rhee’s position put the participation at risk as, less than a decade after the end of the colonial occupation, he did not want the Japanese team to set foot on Korean soil. Eventually an agreement was reached thanks to the diplomatic work of coach Lee Yoo-seong: both qualifying matches would be played in Tokyo. Having saved the national honour, a 5-1 victory arrived in the first leg which also served as a sporting redemption. After the formality of the second meeting, one more problem remained to be overcome. As there were still no international flights out of Seoul, the Korean federation turned to the US Air Force to reach Europe. On 11 June 1954, those summoned left by train from the capital for an endless journey whose first stop was the port of Busan where a ship would take them, by a mocking fate, back to Japan again. Too bad that the first scheduled flight, an American military plane based in Tokyo, could only accommodate 11 players: two days of travel with refueling stops in Manila, Hanoi, Calcutta, Karachi, Syria and even in Italy. It didn’t go any better for those who were on the second plane that arrived in Zurich just a few hours before the game, amidst jet lag and tired muscles. Circumstances that didn’t help the Koreans: if beating Japan was easy, confronting Puskas’ Hungary proved to be an impossible undertaking. It went 9-0 with such domination by the Magyars that some players collapsed exhausted in the second half. The reigning Olympic champions showed no mercy, nor did the Turks in the second and final match of that World Cup. The adventure in Switzerland ended with sixteen goals conceded and zero scored, but still today they are the “heroes of 54”.