South Korea blanks Soca Warriors 5-0 on King debut

Derek King marked his of­fi­cial de­but as T&T se­nior men’s foot­ball team head coach with a 5-0 de­feat at the hands of FI­FA World Cup-bound South Ko­rea in an in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly at BYU South Field in Pro­vo, Utah, on Sat­ur­day night.

For the 25th world-ranked South Ko­re­ans, cap­tain Son He­ung-min scored twice in the first half be­fore Hwang Hee-chan and sub­sti­tute Cho Gue-sung, with a sec­ond-half brace, com­plet­ed the scor­ing for the Asian side in front of an es­ti­mat­ed crowd of 3,400 spec­ta­tors, the vast ma­jor­i­ty of whom were South Ko­re­an sup­port­ers.

For the 102nd world ranked T&T who had two full train­ing ses­sions un­der coach since ar­riv­ing in Utah on Thurs­day, the fix­ture rep­re­sent­ed a valu­able op­por­tu­ni­ty against a team prepar­ing for the FI­FA World Cup Group A match­es against Mex­i­co, South Africa and Czechia.

South Ko­rea al­most took the lead in the eighth-minute when a right-sided cross in­to the 18-yard box was de­flect­ed on­to his own cross­bar by T&T debu­tant de­fend­er Kier­an Ng­wenya.

Oth­er­wise, led by 22-year-old Ko­bi Hen­ry of the USA’s Re­al Mon­archs, T&T de­fend­ed res­olute­ly for the open­ing 30 min­utes and man­aged to main­tain its shape against a tech­ni­cal­ly sound South Ko­re­an side that at­tacked most­ly down the right flank.

T&T’s best op­por­tu­ni­ty came with­in a minute when mid­field­er Mo­lik Khan won the ball and sent New York Red Bulls strik­er Roald Mitchell on his way from just over the half-line, but just as he un­leashed his right-foot­ed ef­fort at South Ko­re­an goal­keep­er Jo Hyeon Woo, de­fend­er. Han-Beom Lee slid in with a time­ly in­ter­ven­tion to block out the at­tempt.

How­ev­er, the Ko­re­ans grad­u­al­ly in­creased the pres­sure and cre­at­ed sev­er­al op­por­tu­ni­ties, and in the 31st minute they went close when Paik Se­ung-ho’s head­er, set up by Kim Moon-Hwan’s cross, was turned away by a point-blank save from goal­keep­er Jabari Brice.

Nine min­utes lat­er the South Ko­re­ans even­tu­al­ly broke the dead­lock through Los An­ge­les FC strik­er Son, 33 close range tap in off a feed from right winger Kim Moon-Hwan who looked to col­lect a pass in a clear off­side po­si­tion.

And three min­utes lat­er, Son, for­mer­ly of Bay­er 04 Lev­erkusen and Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur, added a sec­ond from the penal­ty spot af­ter T&T’s Dante Sealy of Col­orado Rapids’ need­less tack­le on Bae Jun-ho in­side the area for a 2-0 half-time lead.

On the re­sump­tion, South Ko­rea con­tin­ued to dom­i­nate pos­ses­sion, with Bae Jun-ho forc­ing Brice in­to a first-post save in the 54th minute be­fore they fi­nal­ly ex­tend­ed their ad­van­tage to 3-0 through Cho Gue-sung in the 65th minute off an as­sist by Lee Dong-gyeong.

Sub­sti­tute Hwang Hee-chan, who re­placed Jens Cas­trop in the 61st minute, then added to the tal­ly when he slot­ted home their sec­ond award penal­ty of the match in the 75th minute af­ter sub­sti­tute T&T goal­keep­er Tehsorne Ra­goo on de­but mist­imed a clear­ance from a pass back by Hen­ry and clipped

Ji-sung Eom, be­fore Cho added his sec­ond two min­utes lat­er af­ter some slop­py de­fend­ing from T&T to com­plete the scor­ing on an as­sist from sub­sti­tute Young-woo Se­ol.

In ad­di­tion to Ra­goo and Ng­wenya, mid­field­er Ali Kaz­im Nakhid, the son of for­mer na­tion­al cap­tain David Nakhid, and de­fend­er Ja­cob Greene all made their de­but for T&T.

The loss against the Asians comes on the heels of de­feats against Venezuela (4-1) and Gabon (3-2 on penal­ty kicks af­ter a 2-2 draw in the FI­FA Se­ries in Uzbek­istan in March, both with King as in­ter­im coach, and ex­tends T&T’s win­less run to sev­en match­es, dat­ing back to the 3-0 win over Bermu­da in the Con­ca­caf World Cup qual­i­fiers on Oc­to­ber 10, 2025.

South Ko­rea, who are prepar­ing for the FI­FA World Cup, will next face El Sal­vador in Utah, while T&T faces Rus­sia, 1-0 losers to Egypt on Thurs­day last, in an­oth­er away friend­ly in­ter­na­tion­al on Tues­day, June 9.

Re­sult

South Ko­rea 5 (Son He­ung-min 40th, 43rd pen, Hwang Hee-chan 75th pen, Gue-sung Cho 65th, 77th, vs T&T 0

T&T

1. Jabari Brice (GK) (21. Teshorne Ra­goo 69th), 2. Deron Payne (5. Jaylen Year­wood 69th), 3. Ko­bi Hen­ry, 4. Kier­an Ng­wenya, 23. Noah Pow­der (20. Kai­him Thomas 84th), 8. Daniel Phillips, 11. Ju­dah Gar­cia (16. Ja­cob Greene 60th, 17. Michel Poon-Angeron (12. Ali Kaz­im Nakhid 69th), 15. Dante Sealy (13. Ja­heim Faustin 69th), 18. Mo­lik Khan (14. John-Paul Rochford 60th), 19. Roald Mitchell (Isa­iah Lee 60th).

Subs not used: 7. Sher­vohnez Hamil­ton, 6. An­tho­ny Her­bert, 9. Daniel David.

South Ko­rea

21. Jo Hyeon Woo (GK), 5. Han-Beom Lee (19. Hwang In-beom 62nd), 9. Lee Gi Hyuk. 10. Yu Min Cho (Jin-seob Park 54th), 15. Kim Moon-hwan (3. Gue-sung Cho 61st), 17. Jens Cas­trop (26. Hwang Hee-chan 61st), 6. Jin-gyu Kim (14. Jae-se­ung Lee 46th), 20. Lee Dong Gyeong, 22. Se­ung Ho Paik (23. Ji-sung Eom 61st) , 25. Bae Jun-Ho (16. Kim Min-jae 62nd), 13. Son He­ung Min (8. Young-woo Se­ol 62nd),

Subs not sued: 12. Kim eu­ng-gyu, 1. Song Bum-Ke­un, 2. Kim Tae-hyeon, 18. Wi-je Cho, 24. Kang Sang-Yun. 7. Lee Tae-seok, 11. Yang Hyun-Jun.