Match Against France: Best of 2006

It was June 18 this year in Leipzig, Germany where the second game of Group G in the 2006 FIFA World Cup between Korea and France was held.

On the 81st minute, when everyone was foreseeing Korea’s defeat, Cho Jae-jin dropped the ball with his head and Park Ji-sung, dashing to the goal, tipped the ball with his toes. Scraping the fingertips of the French goalie Fabien Barthez, the ball dropped inside the goal. With this goal, Korea tied France, which was one of the championship candidates, and continued its hope to proceed to the second round.

Korean football fans have chosen the match between Korea and France in the Germany World Cup as the ‘best international football match of the year.’ In a ‘best of 2006’ poll conducted by the Korea Football Association between December 19 and 27, the game won 257 votes from 787 fans who participated, taking first place. The match against Togo (June 13, 2-1 win) in the same tournament, which was Korea’s first World Cup victory in an away game, took second place.

In addition, Seol Ki-hyun was chosen as the player of the year. He took first place by winning 28.1% of votes (221). As for the goal of the year, fans selected Kim Do-heon’s left-foot middle range goal (172 votes) on September 6 against Taiwan during the preliminary round for the Asian Cup.

jaeyuna@donga.com