Koreaphobia Continues at the East Asian Cup

I’d never heard of the East Asian Cup until this week, but now I’m fascinated. It’s a four team tournament featuring, duh, East Asian teams. Big boys Japan, South Korea and China qualify automatically, with Chinese Taipei, North Korea, Guam, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Northern Mariana Islands and Macau fighting through a qualifying round for the right to join them. For the 2008 edition it was North Korea who made it.

The four teams play each other once, with three points for a win and one for a draw. The winner is whoever finishes with the best record. The opening round of games happened this past weekend. Here’s what happened.

Japan fell behind to North Korea when Jong Tae-Se pulled off this great dribble and shot, but equalised with a Ryoichi header.

But the big news was South Korea defeating host China with Kwak Tae-Hwi’s injury time goal, which he took on his chest before volleying home like he was Marco van Basten. It’s now thirty years since China beat South Korea, a phenomenon referred to in China as Koreaphobia.

The tournament continues tomorrow as Japan meet China and the two Koreas square up to each other.