South Korea has further increased its chances of advancing to the World Cup finals.
The fifth Group B match of the third Asian qualifying round for the 2026 FIFA World Cup finals in North Korea, China and the U.S. has been completed. Each team in Group B played five matches each. Half of the 10 rounds were played.
Korea won the match 3-1 in an away match against Kuwait. Oh Se-hoon, Son Heung-min (penalty kick), and Bae Jun-ho each scored one goal, easily defeating Kuwait, which only had one goal to recover.
Oman defeated the Palestinians 1-0 after South Korea. The home team Oman won a dramatic victory with Al-Ghazani’s last-minute first goal.
Iraq and Jordan couldn’t decide the game with a 0-0 draw.
Korea, which was in the lead, added a win to reach 13 points with four wins and one draw. Jordan and Iraq, the two teams that were chasing Korea, tied each other with two wins, two draws and one loss (eight points), only adding one point each. Korea widened the gap between the second-ranked group and the latter to five points, going even further.
Oman, ranked fourth, has six points with two wins and three losses, maintaining a point gap to catch up with Jordan and Iraq. Quit, ranked fifth, has three points with three draws and two losses, and Palestine, ranked sixth, has two points with two draws and three losses.
Originally evaluated as an overwhelming power, Korea started the preliminary round nervously by garnering a draw with Palestine, the weakest team, in the first round at home. However, the team continued its strides by defeating the rest of the teams in the order of Oman, Jordan, Iraq and Kuwait. Notably, the team secured Jordan and Iraq, which had been evaluated as the second strongest after Korea in Group B, in October in succession. 스포츠토토
If the team finishes the remaining games with a victory, Korea’s leading player will be able to continue its dominance. Korea will have its sixth away game in Palestine on Wednesday. Since it is impossible for the Palestinians at war with Israel to host a home game, the game will be held in neighboring Jordan.
Korea has shown solid performance in both offense and defense with 11 points and four goals in the third qualifying round, but does not rely on certain players to score. Lee Jae-sung, Oh Hyun-kyu, Oh Se-hoon, and Son Heung-min scored two goals each, while Bae Jun-ho, Hwang Hee-chan, and Joo Min-kyu scored one each. The strikers’ even scored.