Women's football team defeat New Zealand in first of two friendlies

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Women's football team defeat New Zealand in first of two friendlies

The Korean national team celebrate after Lim Seon-joo scored Korea's winning goal during a friendly against New Zealand at Goyang Stadium in Gyeonggi on Saturday. [YONHAP]

The Korean national team celebrate after Lim Seon-joo scored Korea's winning goal during a friendly against New Zealand at Goyang Stadium in Gyeonggi on Saturday. [YONHAP]

 
The Korean women's football team beat New Zealand 2-1 in their first friendly at Goyang Stadium in Gyeonggi on Saturday. 
 
The second friendly will be played at the same venue on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
 
New Zealand opened the scoring in the 25th minute, with Jacqui Hand slotting in the first goal of the match. With neither team able to add to the score during the remainder of the first half, the whistle blew with New Zealand leading 1-0. After the break, in the 59th minute, Choe Yu-ri crossed the ball over to Choo Hyo-joo, before New Zealand's Meikayla Moore scored on own-goal, Korea's first of the match. 
 
Then in the 90th minute, Cho So-hyun dribbled past the New Zealand defense and sent a cross with her left over to Lim Seon-joo who headed in the winning score. The goal marked Lim's sixth, during her 85th national team match which fell on her 31st birthday.  
 
Cho So-hyun tries her shot at the first friendly 2-1 against New Zealand on Saturday at Goyang Stadium in Gyeonggi. [NEWS1]

Cho So-hyun tries her shot at the first friendly 2-1 against New Zealand on Saturday at Goyang Stadium in Gyeonggi. [NEWS1]

Ji So-yun dribbles past the New Zealand defense at the first friendly held on Saturday at Goyang Stadium in Gyeonggi. [YONHAP]

Ji So-yun dribbles past the New Zealand defense at the first friendly held on Saturday at Goyang Stadium in Gyeonggi. [YONHAP]

 
The Korean national team has had a busy year. In April, the Taeguk Ladies narrowly missed out on a chance to compete at the 2020 Tokyo Games after losing to China on aggregate in their final qualifier.
 
The national team bounced back in the qualifiers for the 2022 Asian Cup, beating Mongolia 12-0 and Uzbekistan 4-0 in September.
 
In the course of those games, Ji So-yun scored her 59th goal for Korea to overtake football legend Cha Bum-kun, known as Tscha Bum, as Korea's all-time leading goal scorer across all teams, all divisions, all genders and all competitions.
 
The Taeguk Ladies then flew to the United States last month for what promised to be two very challenging friendlies against the world-leading United States women's team.  
 
Korea got off to a surprising start, holding the U.S. squad to a 0-0 draw in Kansas City on Oct. 21. The United States didn't underestimate Korea a second time, rallying for a 6-0 win in their second game on Oct. 26 in St. Paul, Minnesota. 
 
The match against New Zealand marks the Taeguk Ladies' first time playing at home since April of 2019 when they faced Iceland.  
 
The two friendlies offer another chance for the national team to warm up ahead of the 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup, which kicks off on Jan. 20. The top five teams of the AFC Asian Cup will play in the 2023 FIFA World Cup. At the Asian Cup, Korea has been drawn in Group C alongside Japan, Vietnam and Myanmar. With the top two teams advancing to the knockout stage, the Korean squad will be expecting to advance with wins against the weaker Southeast Asian teams.
 
New Zealand is currently ranked five spots below Korea at No. 23, providing a good tune-up opportunity for the Korean squad. The two sides have now faced each other 12 times, with Korea winning six of the matches, drawing five and losing only once. 

BY YUN SO-HYANG, JIM BULLEY [yun.sohyang@joongang.co.kr]
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