South Korea

• 1
  South Korea's tournament ended with a 1-0 loss to South Africa on June 24 in their final Group A game, a result that eliminated them and simultaneously sent South Africa through to their first-ever World Cup knockout stage. Finishing third with one win from three games, it's a tidy but unremarkable line for a squad that had opened with real promise.
• 2
  That promise showed on day one — a 2-1 comeback win over Czechia, South Korea's opening game of the tournament. Hwang In-beom equalised after Czechia's early header, then set up Oh Hyeon-gyu for the winner with 10 minutes left. It's the kind of gutsy, from-behind win that makes a tournament opener memorable.
• 3
  The decision that will be talked about for a while is manager Hong Myung-bo's call to drop captain Son Heung-min from the decisive final group game against South Africa. It didn't pay off, South Korea lost and went out, and it reopened plenty of questions back home about the manager's judgment at the biggest possible moment. Nothing personal in it for Son — these things happen to captains all the time — but the timing made it sting.
• 4
  Son Heung-min is the name every non-fan should still know: South Korea's captain and all-time record cap-holder, at his fourth World Cup and one of the most respected players of his generation. Being an unused substitute for his side's tournament-deciding match, potentially his last at a World Cup, is a strange note for a career like his to end this chapter on.
• 5
  South Korea leave with a group-stage exit and a live debate about what comes next, both for the manager and for a squad that will eventually have to plan for football after Son. There's a decent core here — Hwang In-beom, Oh Hyeon-gyu and others showed real quality — but the next four years are as much about succession planning as tactics.