Ghana was stopped by Uruguay
South Korea remains the only Asian team that has qualified for the semi-final of the world cup, and this was in 2002 when they co-hosted the tournament
The 2002 World Cup has gone down in infamy due to the huge number of refereeing mistakes that helped eliminate a string of top nations, and also ensured that co-hosts Korea made it all the way to the semi-finals.
During their final two group games against Croatia and Mexico, Italy had four perfectly good goals disallowed, but somehow managed to scrape through to the second round where they met South Korea. Against Guus Hiddink’s men, Italy again had a valid goal chalked off, a golden goal from Damiano Tomassi which would have taken them to the next round.
Francesco Totti was sent off for diving when replays suggested he had lost his footing, while the Koreans were awarded a controversial penalty for a Christian Panucci tugging offence. Italy eventually lost after Ahn Jung-Hwan’s golden winner, but the match and Ecuadorian referee Byron Moreno have gone down in Italian football notoriety.
The Italian nation cried that there had been a conspiracy against them, and they were soon joined by the Spanish, who in the very next game against Korea had two perfectly good goals disallowed as they were eliminated on penalties. At the end of the game, Ivan Helguera had to be held back by team-mates as he attempted to attack the referee.
Italy and Spain were not the only team to be apparently wronged by Korea during the 2002 World Cup. In their final group game against Portugal, the co-hosts continually appeared to win favors from the referee as they won 1-0, thus eliminating the Europeans. source
Thank you so much for this nice information.
My pleasure :)
Thanks for your response.
I cry that day when Ghana lost
Yes, it was really hard on them to lose that way.