Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Montreal: Korea Republic began their FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015 campaign with a defeat on Tuesday (local) time as Brazil’s duo of Formiga and Marta wrote themselves in the history books while condemning the East Asians to a 2-0 defeat.
The 37-year-old Formiga marked her feat of becoming only the second footballers – after Japan’s Homare Sawa – to appear at six FIFA World Cups by notching a first half opener, before Marta effectively ended the Group E encounter as a contest with a neatly converted penalty on 52 minutes which saw her take her overall World Cup tally to a record breaking 15.
Making only their second appearance at the global event, Korea Republic will now be desperate for a positive result when they play Costa Rica, who earlier in the day drew 1-1 with Spain, on June 13.
“We gave it our best shot and we’re disappointed with the defeat, but Brazil played very well. They’re a skilful, powerful team,” head coach Yoon Duk-yeo told fifa.com.
“My players did well from a physical point of view, but we made mistakes and conceded two goals. There are various aspects that we need to improve on, but I’m mostly concerned by the damage that the defeat might have done to our morale – we’ll need to recover quickly so that we can meet the challenges ahead.”
Brazil, World Cup runners-up in 2007, started brightly at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium and were unlucky not to go ahead in the opening exchanges when Fabiana’s fierce effort from distance thundered back off the crossbar.
Despite dominating for large periods, head coach Vadao’s charges were forced to wait until the 33rd minute before they broke the deadlock, Formiga firing home after Kim Do-yeon’s woefully underhit backpass had allowed her possession.
In truth, Korea Republic rarely threatened and it was little surprise when Brazil doubled their lead 17 minutes into the second half, referee Esther Staubli pointing to the spot after Formiga, a constant thorn in the Koreans’ side, had been bundled over in the area by Taeguk Ladies captain Cho Soh-yun.
The experienced Marta stepped up and duly slotted the spot-kick past goalkeeper Kim Jung-mi to take her World Cup haul to 15 – one ahead of Germany’s Birgit Prinz – and compound a poor day at the office for Korea Republic.
Photo: FIFA / Getty Images