South Korea beats Egypt 4-1 on Tuesday in their final pre-World Cup friendly of the month, with striker Hwang Ui-jo leading the way with a goal and an assist.
The much-anticipated showdown between the joint Premier League Golden Boot winners, South Korean captain Son Heung-min and his Egyptian counterpart, Mohamed Salah, never came to fruition, with Salah not making the trip to Seoul due to an unspecified injury.
Son made his fourth consecutive start and had a hand in the team’s first two goals in his typically effective performance.
This was the fourth and final friendly match for South Korea in its preparation for the World Cup. South Korea lost to Brazil 5-1 on June 2 and beat Chile 2-0 four days later. It played Paraguay to a 2-2 draw last Friday before Tuesday night’s beatdown.
South Korea will have two more friendlies in September before the World Cup kicks off in November. The country will also participate in the East Asian Football Federation E-1 Football Championship in July in Japan but will be without some of its top Europe-based talent for that event.
Egypt travelled here without Salah due to an unspecified injury and were also missing a few other players. South Korea played without two regular midfielders, Jung Woo-young and Hwang In-beom, while centre back Kim Min-jae wasn’t even called up following an ankle surgery.
South Korea shook off an uninspired start to take the lead on 16 minutes. Son made a long diagonal pass to Kim Jin-su on the left wing to stretch the Egyptian defense. From there, Kim sent a sharp cross for Hwang, who headed it home for his second goal in four matches.
The hosts doubled the lead six minutes later, when centre back Kim Young-gwon scored with a diving header after Hwang headed down a corner taken by Son.
Egypt responded with Mostafa Mohamed’s goal on 38 minutes. Ibrahim Adel’s initial shot deflected off Kim Jin-su, and while a handful of South Korean players pleaded with the referee for a possible handball violation, Mohamed pounced on the loose ball and cut the deficit in half.
Teams traded few chances in the second half, before South Korea added two late goals to finish off the convincing victory. Substitute Cho Gue-sung extended the lead to 3-1 with a gorgeous curler in the 85th minute, and midfielder Kwon Chang-hoon headed home a cross by Kim Jin-su to round out the scoring.
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