{"id":36884,"date":"2026-06-12T11:15:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T09:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=36884"},"modified":"2026-06-12T11:15:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T09:15:37","slug":"south-korea-snatch-2-1-win-over-czech-republic-in-world-cup-opener","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/south-korea-snatch-2-1-win-over-czech-republic-in-world-cup-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korea snatch 2-1 win over Czech Republic in World Cup opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">South Korea came back from a goal down to snatch a thrilling \u200b2-1 win over the Czech Republic \u200cin their World Cup Group A opener on Thursday, substitute Oh Hyeon-gyu grabbing the winner in the 80th \u200bminute.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Korea captain Son Heung-Min wasted a \u200bnumber of decent chances before his Czech \u2060counterpart Ladislav Krejci broke the deadlock against \u200bthe run of play in the 59th minute \u200bby heading home from a long throw-in, but the lead was short-lived as Hwang In-Beom kept his cool \u200bto dink the equaliser over the keeper \u200beight minutes later.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Tomas Soucek thought he had put the Czechs \u200cback \u2060in front with a header from a free kick in the 77th minute but the goal was chalked off for offside, and less \u200bthan three \u200bminutes later \u2060the Koreans went ahead as Hwang turned provider, pulling the ball \u200bback for Oh to fire home \u200bfrom \u2060close range.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Co-hosts Mexico top the group after their 2-0 win over South Africa (SA) and they will \u2060meet \u200bthe South Koreans in Guadalajara \u200bnext Thursday, while the Czechs take on SA in \u200bAtlanta.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":36885,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-36884","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Co-hosts Mexico top the group after their 2-0 win over SA.","published_date":"","news_description":"Co-hosts Mexico top the group after their 2-0 win over SA.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36886,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36884\/revisions\/36886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=36884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}