On The Up
1976 was to turn out to be a highly important year for Korean football. Despite losing out in Olympic qualification, the national team triumphed in the Merdeka Cup where they equaled their record scoreline of 8-0 against India, having previously beaten Taiwan by that score in the 1971 Olympic qualifiers. The year also saw the first competitive meeting of South Korea and North Korea since the formation of both countries in 1945. The competition was the 18th Asian Youth Championship, a game in which the North Koreans triumphed 1-0 to advance to the final, where they shared the championship with Iran.
The 6th President's Cup tournament got underway in Seoul on 11th September 1976, when Korea lined up against Malaysia. South Korea were disappointingly trailing 4-1 at one point in the game when young striker Cha Beum-kun scored three times in the space of five minutes to level the tie. Cha's goals inspired the Korean team to further success in the tournament as they ran out eventual winners.
In 1977 the Korean national team played their first full international match in Korea outside Seoul, lining up against Iran in a 1978 World Cup qualifying match in the southern port city of Busan. South Korea had previously qualified from their initial group stages, eliminating Japan and Israel after the withdrawal of North Korea from the pool. Four draws in their eight final group matches saw the Koreans disappointingly finish 2nd to eventual tournament qualifiers Iran. The following year North Korea decided to enter the 8th Asian Games tournament held in Bangkok, Thailand, and both Koreas progressed to the final. The game ended 0-0, and the Asian Games gold medal was shared between the two sides.
The President's Cup, originally intended to be a prestigious tournament, took on a much reduced profile in the late 1970s with the admission of club sides and international second string teams, and although Korea continued to do well and record some strong results, this was probably more down to the quality of opposition in the tournament itself.
Such results and performances however were likely to catch the eye of foreign, particularly European, football scouts and in August 1979 Korean star Cha Beum-kun secured a move to German Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt. Cha made an instant impression at his new club at both domestic and European level. In the 1979/80 UEFA Cup, with Cha's help Frankfurt disposed of Aberdeen, Dinamo Bucharest, Feyenoord, Zbrojovka Brno and Bayern Munich to set up a final with defending champions Borussia Moenchengladbach. Cha shone in both ties, winning the man of the match award in the second leg, as his Eintracht lifted the UEFA Cup for the first time in their history. Huh Jung-moo, the talented Korean midfielder, also went to Europe in 1980, spending three seasons at Dutch club PSV Eindhoven where he played seventy-seven times and scored eleven goals.
The national team qualified for the 7th Asian Cup competition in 1980 courtesy of three victories over Macao, the Philippines and China. The tournament itself, held in Kuwait City, saw Korea advance all the way to the final disposing of North Korea on the way, before going down 3-0 to tournament hosts Kuwait. The victory helped to soften the blow of failing to qualify for the 1980 Olympics earlier in the year.
Korea, as co-champions with North Korea, returned to the 9th Asian Games championship in New Delhi confident of further triumphs. An opening 3-0 win over South Yemen was followed up with a 1-0 defeat to Iran and a 2-1 defeat against arch-rivals Japan, and Korea meekly relinquished their crown.
1981 was to prove a historic year for Korean sports in general, and a landmark year for the nation as a whole. Seoul had applied to host the 1988 24th Summer Olympiad and, in the 1981 vote, edged out the Japanese city of Nagoya to win the right to hold the games. Success in the vote meant automatic qualification for the 1988 tournament as hosts, guaranteeing the football team's first Olympic participation since 1964.
The success of exports Cha Beum-kun and Huh Jung-moo in Germany and Holland respectively gave the KFA firsthand experience of just how organized professional league football promoted the development of footballers. Pressure too was growing from within Korea to provide a strong league competition. University sides such as Konkuk University and corporate clubs, especially the recently-created bank sides in the amateur levels were regularly winning the Amateur Football Championship and President's Cup. League football was the inevitable result, and the KFA set about getting such a competition off the ground.
