Post Japan
The end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945 and the division of the country across the 38th parallel brought with it fresh hopes of a peaceful peninsula. The partition of the country into a US-administered southern area and a Soviet-controlled north was intended as a temporary solution until the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the Republic of China could create a formal administrative body. However, Cold War politics dictated that such a process would fail, and in 1948 two separate politically-opposed Korean nations were officially established.
The South Korean team entered the international football arena as an independent team at the 14th Summer Olympiad, held in London in 1948. The team played their first round match on the 2nd August, winning 5-3 against Mexico through goals from Chung Guk-jin (2), Choi Sung-gun, Bae Chun-ho and Chun Nam-sik. Three days later the Koreans lined up against Sweden in the quarterfinal and at half-time found themselves 4-0 down. There was to be no fairytale recovery though, as the Swedes added a further eight second-half goals to run out 12-0 winners. Sweden went on to win the gold medal by defeating Yugoslavia 3-1 in the final.
On 4th September that same year, the Joseon Football Association, which had been on hiatus since the end of the Japanese rule in 1945, was restructured and reborn as the Korean Football Association, gaining FIFA membership not long afterward.
The newly formed KFA took over control of the amateur Adult Football Championship, founded in November of 1945, which resurrected championship football in the peninsula after the 21st All Joseon Football Championship had ended in 1940. Jung-dong Middle School won the main tournament in the final year, with Boseong Professional winning the professional tournament. and Majang Football Club winning the general section. In 1952 the KFA established the President's Cup, an organized tournament involving club teams from university, amateur and public levels. The Army Special Forces College team won the first tournament, and would go on to win a further four times during the 1950s.
After having made a rather inauspicious debut in the international football world, the Koreans, having opted out of applying to take part in the 1950 World Cup, began the process of building an experienced international side with a view to qualification for the 1954 tournament. A tour of southeast Asia followed in January 1949, which saw the Korean national team play six matches in the space of three weeks, winning all but one match, against Taiwan. They were infrequent participants in full international fixtures due to the onset of the Korean War, which took place from 1950-1953. With an end to the hostile stalemate in sight, the Korean football team regrouped and returned to international action, when they played a staggering eleven games in the space of thirteen days in early April, albeit all away from home. These matches, in Hong Kong and Singapore, produced some understandably erratic performances and inconsistencies of results.
Fate was to deal the Koreans a heavy hand, as they were drawn to face Japan in the qualifying round for the 1954 World Cup. Simmering hostility to the Japanese on the peninsula, along with the personal intervention of Korean President Syngman Rhee, rendered it impossible for the home leg to be played in Korea, so both matches took place on Japanese soil. The Koreans ran out resounding 5-1 winners in the first leg and, seven days later, drew 2-2 to claim their place in Switzerland.
One month before the World Cup, the Korean team participated in the 2nd Asian Games tournament in the Philippines and finished silver-medal winners, losing out 5-2 to tournament champions Taiwan. Confidence was high for the forthcoming World Cup, however after the 48-hour plane journey to Zurich, where they landed only 10 hours prior to the kickoff of their opening match, they were scantly prepared to face Ferenc Puskas' Hungarian side, and they were crushed 9-0 by the skillful East Europeans. Three days later in Geneva the demoralized team went down 7-0 to Turkey, and the World Cup dream was over.
