Co-hosts Mexico became the first team to reach the knockout rounds of the World Cup with a 1-0 win over South Korea at a delirious Guadalajara Stadium on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Luis Romo’s goal just after half-time put Mexico through as Group A winners with a match to go following a goalkeeping clanger.<\/p>\n
In contrast, Mexico stopper Raul Rangel made a superb double save in the dying minutes to preserve their lead.<\/p>\n
Finishing top keeps Mexico at home in the last 32 with a game against a third-placed team in Mexico City.<\/p>\n
South Korea are second on three points, with the Czech Republic and South Africa also still alive on one.<\/p>\n
Both teams went into the clash in front of a passionate home crowd knowing that victory would guarantee progress in double-quick time.<\/p>\n
Mexico coach Javier Aguirre made three changes from the side that beat South Africa 2-0 a week ago to open the tournament.<\/p>\n
His counterpart Hong Myung-bo made just one alteration, largely keeping faith with the team that fought back to defeat the Czech Republic 2-1.<\/p>\n
South Korea skipper Son Heung-min had the first sniff at goal after 15 minutes, looping the ball over Rangel only for Edson Alvarez to prevent it going in with a bicycle kick on the line.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles FC attacker Son was belatedly flagged for offside although replays suggested it was a close call.<\/p>\n
Julian Quinones, who scored the opening goal of the tournament, then forced South Korea goalkeeper Kim Seung-gyu into a good save from a header, raising the decibels.<\/p>\n
The rest of an uneventful half belonged to South Korea as they stroked the ball around at will, without ever creating a clear chance, but they did succeed in silencing the home support.<\/p>\n
Jeers rang out at half-time from the Mexico fans.<\/p>\n
The hosts started the second period with far more intent, and five minutes in they went ahead when the goalkeeper Kim came for a high ball and clattered into his own player, spilling it straight to Romo.<\/p>\n
He just needed to poke the ball first time into an unguarded net, triggering pandemonium.<\/p>\n
Hong surprisingly hauled off the veteran talisman Son before the hour and threw on Hwang Hee-chan of Wolverhampton Wanderers.<\/p>\n
But the Koreans were mostly toothless going forward until the final few minutes, when Guadalajara native Rangel came to Mexico’s rescue.<\/p>\n
They will face the Czech Republic in their dead-rubber final group game while South Korea play South Africa.<\/p>\n
South Africa and the Czechs drew 1-1 earlier in the day.<\/p>\n
See how the game unfolded below:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Co-hosts Mexico became the first team to reach the knockout rounds of the World Cup with a 1-0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-484857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}