Korea beats Nigeria 1-0 in prep for Olympic football

Choi Gyu-baek of the Korean men’s Olympic football team, center, celebrates after scoring a goal in the second half of the match against Nigeria during a four-nation invitational tournament match at the Suwon World Cup Stadium, Thursday. Korea won 1-0.

By John Duerden

Just 24 hours after the South Korea’s senior national team was thrashed 6-1 by Spain in Salzburg, the Olympic team put a little smile back on the face of fans with a 1-0 win over Nigeria at the Suwon World Cup Stadium on Thursday.

In an entertaining affair, Choi Gyu-beak, making his first appearance for the Under-23 team, scored the only goal with five minutes remaining.

There is more action to come in the next few days with games against Honduras on Saturday and then Denmark two days later.

These are all warm-ups for the main event in August. At the Olympics, Korea has been grouped with Fiji, Germany and defending champion Mexico.

Nigeria caused plenty of problems in the first half with goalkeeper Koo Sung-yoon, resplendent in a bright pink shirt, having to make a couple of important saves as the visitors had an impressive 14 goal attempts in the first half.

There were two opportunities in the first half for the home team. Pohang Steelers’ star Moon Chang-jin’s shot from inside the area was blocked by the goalkeeper, and soon after, defender Song Joo-hoon side-footed just wide from close range.

Moon should have scored on the hour as he had time to pick his spot inside the area but his shot was blocked by a sea of defenders as was the rebound.

Nigeria continued to have most of the possession and good chances, hitting the crossbar and bring out more good saves from the Korean goalkeeper.

It seemed as the game was drifting towards a goalless tie but with five minutes remaining, Korea had a free-kick on the left side. The Nigerian defense stayed on the 18 yard-line, trying to play the red shirts offside and there was Choi to fire home from close range.

The goal and the victory will not erase memories of a bad 24 hours for Korean soccer but at least ends a bad week on a small high.