Korea entered this tournament as a favorite (by some pundits) to win the entire thing and while I have not watched a single match because of time zone issues, their performance has been pretty poor excluding a victory over Australia.
I'm not a huge fan of football of the soccer variety but I like to keep up with some of the teams especially Korea and Japan because I'm fascinated by their cultures and hope to visit those countries one day. I also have a soft spot for perceived underdogs and always support both of these teams in the World Cup.
Some news outlets are calling it a "shocking defeat" but based on the stats and their performance up to this point I don't know if that is necessarily true. I will admit that I know damn near nothing about the football prowess of Jordan but seeing as how Korea routinely does well on a global scale and Jordan rarely makes an appearance, I suppose I can run with that notion.
Looking at the scores in the Asian Cup I don't understand how anyone would think that Korea was dominant though. They beat Bahrain, which I would struggle to find on a map, but then they drew with Jordan, drew with Malaysia, and drew with Saudi Arabia. Based on the squad alone they should have annihilated the last two teams. Sure they defeated Australia to advance to the semi-finals, but both of their goals were on penalties although one of them was an absolute cracker of a goal the likes of which you don't see in any football game.
Hopefully those clips will not get taken down... they should stay because the quality is so poor. The goal I am talking about, which won them the game, took place in the 104th minute.
Against Jordan though, at least the 2nd time, Korea simply couldn't get anything done. They had a good strategy from a statistical point of view but Korea, at least as far as I know and have seen, are a team that maintains possession a great deal
From my years of playing football of the soccer variety, I haven't seen many competitions where a team maintained possession for 70% of the game and loses 2-0. It likely had something to do with the 6 interceptions Jordan managed that put them over. I didn't watch the game because again, it was on at a very inconvenient time of day for my life. I did wake up surprised though.
There's only one game left and this lineup surprises me as well. Iran will play vs Qatar to see who will face off against Jordan in the final. It's quite shocking to me that Korea, Japan, and Australia will not see it to the final game. Perhaps someone out there that follows this sport significantly more than I do can explain if they don't field their best players because of professional club duties because if that is the case it changes the perspective dramatically.
It is sad to see them go because I do appreciate Korea and just how polite and clean they seem to play and even the way that their fans behave. I suppose there can only be one team that emerges victorious though and for everyone else, it is just heartache.