South Korea on Friday advanced to the knockout stage of the World Cup with what may have been the tournament’s most dramatic victory.
It appeared all but certain that South Korea’s run would come to an end with their match against Portugal sitting at 1-1 in stoppage time. Hwang Hee-Chan then netted a game winner on a beautiful pass from Son Heung-Min in the 91st minute.
Beating Portugal was only step one for South Korea, however. Uruguay was beating Ghana 2-0 in the other Group H match at the time. With South Korea’s 2-1 victory in the books and Uruguay leading 2-0, both South Korea and Uruguay had four points and a goal differential of zero. South Korea held the second tiebreaker over Uruguay, which is total goals scored in the tournament.
When South Korea’s match finished, Uruguay still had several minutes of stoppage time remaining. Had they scored another goal against Ghana, they would have then held the tie breaker for goal differential and finished as the Group H runner-up rather than South Korea. The South Korean team and fans remained at the stadium to intently watch the finish of the Uruguay-Ghana match.
South Korea went from going home to advancing to the Round of 16 in a matter of minutes. They needed everything to go perfectly in order for it to happen. You won’t see many World Cup moments that are better than that.
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