GUADALAJARA, Mexico \u2013 Mexico booked its place in the World Cup knockout stage as the Group A winner and secured home-field advantage \u2060for the round of 32 after Luis Romo\u2019s second-half strike earned the tournament cohost a 1-0 win over South Korea on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The victory gave Javier Aguirre\u2019s side six points from two matches and ensured its first knockout game would be played in Mexico City on June 30. Mexico is the first team to qualify for the knockout stage.<\/p>\n
Romo broke the deadlock three \u200bminutes after the restart, capitalizing on a costly mistake by goalkeeper Kim Seung-Gyu. The South Korea goalkeeper spilled \u200ca cross \u200cafter colliding with a teammate, giving the Mexico midfielder a simple finish into an unguarded \u200bnet from the center of the box.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a very close game; we didn\u2019t give up a single centimeter and fought for every ball as if it were our last,\u201d Aguirre said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a game \u2060where whoever made a mistake would lose, and it was them…. It was a game to forget, but the result is one \u2060to remember.\u201d<\/p>\n
The goal transformed the mood inside Guadalajara Stadium after an uninspiring first half that ended with sections of the home crowd booing the home team off the pitch.<\/p>\n
Mexico had started brightly but struggled to \u200bturn early possession into clear chances, with South \u2060Korea growing into the game.<\/p>\n
Captain Edson Alvarez, deployed in central defense after Cesar Montes\u2019 suspension, produced a spectacular overhead clearance off the goal line to deny Son Heung-min, \u2060although the South Korea captain \u200bwas later flagged for offside.<\/p>\n
The Asian side finished the half stronger, controlling possession and \u200bunsettling a Mexico side that looked increasingly frustrated as the interval approached.<\/p>\n
Romo\u2019s goal \u200bmoments after the \u200crestart lifted both Mexico and the crowd, with supporters breaking into renditions of Mexican folk song \u201cCielito Lindo\u201d (\u201cLovely Sweetheart\u201c) as Aguirre\u2019s side seized control of a match that had threatened to drift away from it.<\/p>\n
Mexico nearly doubled its advantage midway through the second half when Raul Jimenez controlled a pass from Julian Quinones before firing \u200ca half-volley from close range, only for Kim to produce an outstanding save.<\/p>\n
The South Korea goalkeeper made another excellent stop to deny substitute Obed Vargas, diving low to push away a powerful long-range effort.<\/p>\n
South Korea threw numbers forward in search of an equalizer and came agonizingly close in the closing stages, but goalkeeper Raul Rangel preserved Mexico\u2019s lead with a remarkable double save from \u200bpoint-blank \u200brange.<\/p>\n
Rangel first blocked a close-range effort with his foot before scrambling across his line to \u200bkeep out the rebound.<\/p>\n
Mexico withstood wave after wave of South Korean pressure in a tense finish to secure…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GUADALAJARA, Mexico \u2013 Mexico booked its place in the World Cup knockout stage as the Group A winner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2813,28702,31,32852,574,33],"class_list":["post-58445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea","tag-2026-fifa-world-cup","tag-javier-aguirre","tag-korea","tag-luis-romo","tag-mexico","tag-south-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}