South Korea don't want to top the group, it's not that easy

In the first round of the group stage of the Asian Cup, the overall situation was calm. All six seeds won, and the rest of the matches were not too surprising.

In the second round of the group stage, the situation changed dramatically. First, the Japanese team lost in an upset, and then the South Korean team almost overturned.

It should be surprising that both Japan and South Korea, as favourites to win the championship, are winless.

However, in the eyes of many fans, Japan's loss to Iraq was a pure upset, and South Korea's draw with Jordan was not so unexpected.

Why is that?

South Korea doesn't want to win?

Japan's loss to Iraq was an upset, and Vietnam's loss to Indonesia was actually an upset.

These two accidents in the second round of Group D allowed Iraq to lock up the first place in the group in advance, and Vietnam to go out early.

The Japanese team faced Indonesia in the third round and never dared to make any mistakes.

Even if he doesn't win, he can advance, but Mori will definitely not joke about his position.

Therefore, the probability of the Japanese team finishing second in the group is infinitely close to 100%.

If Japan finishes second in the group, South Korea will be the most worried.

According to the rules of this Asian Cup, the second place in Group D will face the first place in Group E in the 1/8 finals.

South Korea are in Group E, along with Jordan, Bahrain and Malaysia.

With the strength of the Korean team, normal performance will definitely win the first place in the group.

If you win the first place in the group, you are very likely to meet Japan in the 1/8 finals, which is too exciting!

According to the analysis of the Korean media, if Japan and South Korea meet in the 1/8 finals, the hard days have just begun.

Assuming South Korea beats Japan, they will likely face Iran in the quarter-finals and Qatar in the semi-finals......

All in all, the first place in Group E is an explosives bag, and the Korean team will take it or not?

Face or affordability, which one do you want?

We don't know what Klinsmann and the South Korean players think, and we can't just label a team as "match-fixing" or "tacit ball".

Judging from the results of the game, the South Korean team did go in the direction of "moving away" from the Japanese team, but it was not resolute enough.

At one point, they were 2-1 down to Jordan and, according to some fans, simply lost the game.

But for the South Korean team, the 1/8 final against Japan is bad, and losing to Jordan in the group stage is actually quite embarrassing.

It's not good to win, it's not good to lose, so let's draw.

The score of 2-2 cannot be said to be a happy one, but it is also a result that is relatively acceptable to both sides of the game and the audience.

Who wins the group will have to wait until the final round to find out.

Group E final round matchups: South Korea vs Malaysia, Jordan vs Bahrain.

If Jordan loses to Bahrain, that's normal, but as for South Korea if it doesn't beat Malaysia, it's still not easy...

The Jordanian team deserves respect –

Objectively speaking, even if the South Korean team does not deliberately fail to win, the ranking of the Japanese group will inevitably affect the mentality of the Korean players.

On the other hand, from the perspective of the Jordan team, it is not necessary to consider who to meet in the 1/8 finals.

If they lose to South Korea, the next round against Bahrain will be a do-or-die affair, with no certainty of a win or no defeat.

The Jordan team does not know what the attitude of the South Korean team will be. If the South Korean team plays well, it will be bad if they really give them a big defeat.

So Jordan must go all out, take their destiny into their own hands, and ensure that qualifying from the group is the most important thing.

They stubbornly overtook the score when they conceded a goal first.

In the second half, they withstood wave after wave of attacks from the South Korean team, and finally won a draw.

Jordan is currently ranked 87th in the world, 64 places below South Korea, one place below Bahrain and eight places below China.

The other day, Bahrain lost 1-3 to South Korea, and China lost 0-3 to South Korea two months ago.

This time, Jordan almost beat South Korea.

The same is the weak enemy is strong, why does the Jordanian team do better than Bahrain and the national football team?

The attitude of the South Korean team may indeed be an important premise.

The luck of the Jordanian team may have played a big role.

The upset of the Iraqi team may have also inspired the Jordanian team.

But the most important reason must come from the Jordanian team's own ability and hard work.

The overall value of the Jordanian team (13.13 million euros) is similar to that of the national football team (11.33 million euros), but the value distribution of the two teams is very different.

Jordan's No. 10 Moussa Tamari is worth 6 million euros, and one person accounts for nearly half of the team's value.

He currently plays for Montpellier in Ligue 1 and has made 16 appearances (15 starts) in all competitions this season, scoring three goals and providing one assist.

In a game where the enemy is strong, it is crucial to have an attacking player with strong individual ability.

Jordan relied on solidarity in defense and individual play in attack by players such as Moussa Tamari.

In this way, you can take advantage of the limited scoring opportunities and snatch points from the strong teams.

Is it really worth it to "control points"?

In competitive sports, it is not uncommon to select opponents through "point control".

Badminton, volleyball and even Glory of Kings and other events have all had classic events of "score control" in major events. I won't introduce who it is here, but if you are interested, you can check it yourself.

This time it's just football.

England have been the "control players" in recent years, and in the 2018 World Cup, England "conceded" the top of the group and obtained a favorable position in the knockout round.

But the end result was not satisfactory.

At the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Spain's "deliberate" loss to Japan caused huge controversy.

Spain avoided the "death zone" of Croatia and Brazil in the knockout rounds, but lost outright to Morocco.

Sometimes the participants of the game can't really be blamed for the "control of points", because the occurrence of some "control points" is indeed affected by the rules of the game.

Within the rules, through "point control" to fight for a better chance of winning the championship. We discourage it, but it's understandable.

Take the South Korean team this time as an example, they went all out to win 3 games and 3 wins in the group stage, and what awaits them will be the 1/8 finals against Japan.

If you pad properly without affecting the qualification of the group, it will make the prospects of the knockout stage brighter.

If it's you, how do you choose?

It's not that the South Korean team is afraid of the Japanese team, it's just that the two favorites met in advance in the 1/8 finals, which was too cruel for each other.

Of course, according to the examples of England and Spain mentioned above, the desired "point control" may not end well.

This is not to punish the opportunistic, but because in a tournament, the value of each game is very high.

Deliberately not winning, although you can get the convenience of the knockout match, it may also make the state of the whole team "cool", and at the same time, it will also bear huge pressure from public opinion.

It's hard to say which one is more gained or lost.