Wolkle Suarez, South Korea's open respect, almost lost the 2010 World Cup

Apr 03, 2025

Luis Suarez recognized South Korea's potential at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Suarez is currently in his career twilight years with Inter Miami in the U.S. Major League Baseball (MLS). Suarez conducted an interview with Argentine influencer Davu Generiz on the 2nd (Korea time). It was a time to look back on Suarez's career.

Suarez's national team performance was also mentioned. The first major tournament for Suarez, who started playing for the Uruguayan national team in 2007, was the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Uruguay had only managed to advance to the World Cup by qualifying for the intercontinental playoff in the South American qualifying round.

Uruguay did not have much expectation ahead of the tournament, but it reached the round of 16 with two wins, one draw and no points in three games against France, South Africa and Mexico. The opponent of the round of 16 was the Republic of Korea. Fifteen years ago, South Korea met Uruguay, achieving a remarkable feat of reaching the first 16 of the away World Cup.

Everyone expected Uruguay to win lightly, but South Korea, centered on Park Ji-sung and Lee Chung-yong at the time, did not let Uruguay go easily. South Korea gave Suarez the first goal in the 8th minute of the first half because the goalkeeper and defense did not handle Diego Forlan's cross properly. South Korea, which did not give up, balanced it in the 23rd minute of the second half when Lee Chung-yong scored an equalizer.

South Korea continued to flow better than Uruguay, but was defeated in the 35th minute of the second half when Suarez's fantastic coiled goal was scored. Suarez remembered that the face-off against South Korea was really difficult.

He said "We could have easily lost the game. Because Korea dominated us in the second half. The Korean players exceeded us by running at a really fast speed and energy. We could have lost but I scored there. I was really excited when I scored the winning goal."

Suarez approached Park Ji-sung, who played for Manchester United at the time, and exchanged uniforms himself. After exchanging his uniform with Park Ji-sung, Suarez once said in an interview with a local media outlet that `It was a great honor.'

At the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Suarez became famous worldwide for his work against Ghana in the quarterfinals. After that, he moved to Liverpool and became a world-class player, and achieved great success in Barcelona. After a great performance for Atletico Madrid, he is now playing in the U.S. with Lionel Messi.

South Korea avenged Suarez's elimination from the round of 16 at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. South Korea drew 0-0 with Uruguay in the first leg. After his prime, Suarez was completely tied to the defense and did not show much performance.

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South Korea dramatically won the final group match against Portugal to reach the round of 16, but Suarez and Uruguay were eliminated and had to go home.

This article was translated by Naver AI translator.