INCHEON — Captain Son Heung-min led a small group of men's national football team players in their return home from the FIFA World Cup early Wednesday, as they were greeted with encouraging words from dozens of supporters. Fans' reaction to the players at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, was in stark contrast to boos and profanity that targeted former head coach Hong Myung-bo the previous day. Hong had resigned from the post Sunday morning in the team's base camp in Zapopan, western Mexico, after failing to take South Korea out of the group stage. South Korea finished third in Group A with three points from a win and two losses. They still had hopes of sneaking into the knockout round as one of the eight best third-place teams but ended up 10th in the rankings of those nations. The government plans to launch an audit into operations at the Korea Football Association (KFA) to determine where it went all wrong for the national team program and revisit what many critics say was an opaque process to appoint Hong for the second time in July 2024. Hong's detractors have claimed

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