Don't Miss

Twitter erupts over South Korea’s 4-0 debacle

June 10, 2014

By Kim Tong-hyung

The specter of disappointment looms, but Hong Myung-bo preaches patience. Patience will be in short supply when your team looks closer to terrible than mediocre a few days before the World Cup opener.

Korea, making its eighth consecutive World Cup appearance, is grouped with Algeria, Belgium and Russia in Group H. Hong’s men will open against the Russians on June 17.

Twitter was a toxic place for Hong and his players on Tuesday as Internet users vented their frustration and talked about broken promises. And we have yet to play a game in Brazil.

Lee Wae-soo, novelist and massive social media personality, posted the worst tweet of the day when he compared the state of Korean football to the sinking of the Sewol ferry, which killed more than 300 people. Lee, who really does write for a living, deleted the tweet after it touched off anger, and posted an apology.

Lee was not the only Twitter user connecting sports with the real world. Kim Hyung-min, a SBS television producer, saw Korean football as a mini-version of Korea’s society.

“Here are the similarities between Korean football and Korean society:

“1. (They both) react explosively in face of adversity but nothing eventually gets done. 2. Everyone knows what the real problem is but will not try to solve it. 3. It is the bear that jumps through the hoop, but the money goes to Chung. 4. We have seen miracles before but those were all in the past,” Kim tweeted. Chung obviously refers to Chung Mong-joon, conservative politician, billionaire Hyundai scion and Korean football bigwig.

Some Twitter users remembered how President Park Geun-hye announced the disbanding of Korea’s coastguard over the poor emergency response to the Sewol ferry disaster and spawned a meme of her holding a news conference to break up the national football team.

“Koreans inspire World Cup hope,” tweeted Ssoing (@soy556), “to Ghanaians.”

Craic Dealer (@kingkenny1967) wondered whether Hong’s “One Goal” team slogan was actually the scoring tally the Koreans can realistically aim for in Brazil.

Orek (@iPrestonia) preached it was too early to be disappointed because we will be disappointed three more times. Yeonpoongi (@koikaze00) could not understand why Hong had his players wear fake numbers in the Ghana match when his team was playing at a level hardly worth scouting for. At least, Yeonpoongi saw the silver lining in the situation.

“The Ghana match was meaningful because it reassured (us) that no sleep will be lost during the World Cup, we will be able to show up to work and work properly.”

Ladenijoa (@ladenijoa), ever the optimist, reminded everyone there is still hope.

“Our only hope lies with Pele predicting that Korea will fail to survive the group stages with its dismal play,” Ladenijoa tweeted, commenting on the Brazilian football great’s famously bad record for predicting sporting outcomes.