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Alvin Sallay

Hong Kong soccer's Asian Games adventure is over.
The men's team paid the price for sitting back and defending their goal to allow South Korea to register a comfortable 3-0 victory to reach the quarter-finals.
Even the heroics of skipper and goalkeeper Yapp Hung-fai were not enough to save Hong Kong as they tumbled to a defeat in front of a sizeable crowd at the Goyang Stadium last night.
South Korea, who are seeking their first gold medal since the 1986 Games, took an hour to break Hong Kong's dogged resistance.
Once Lee Yong-jae had found the net with a left-foot volley, the result was done and dusted.
Hong Kong had also lost at this same stage, the last 16, four years ago in Guangzhou.
"It was difficult playing against a side, which was physically stronger and technically better than us.
"We couldn't hang on to possession, but I'm proud of the way we defended," said Hong Kong coach Kim Pan-gon.
Hong Kong never made it a contest. They did not have one shot on goal, summing up their defensive mentality. They sat back allowing the Koreans to run at them and it was left to Yapp to keep his team in contention until the 58th minute when the Koreans broke through.
Yapp's best save of the match came in added-on time in the first half when he had to dive full stretch to his right to scrape the ball off the line with his fingertips.
"It is difficult coming up against a team, which is at a higher level than us," Kim said. "We fought bravely for an hour, but they were too strong for us."
Korea broke through when Lee Jae-sung chipped through the defence and it was chested down by Kim Young-uk allowing Lee Yong-jae to do the rest with a powerful volley.
Korea added a second in the 76th minute with Park Joo-ho hammering home a left foot shot from 20 yards. Then in added-on time Kim Jin-su made it 3-0.
Alvin Sallay


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Hong Kong keeper Yapp Hung-fai had to work hard to keep South Korea out of the net in their last-16 match. Photo: K.Y. Cheng 

Sport

Hong Kong

Hosts were far too strong physically and technically better than visitors, who managed to hold off goal scorers till half-time
