South Korea's national football team holds a recovery training session at Estadio Chivas Valle Verde in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Thursday (local time), their base camp, after falling to South Africa in their third Group A match at the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North America while awaiting results from other groups to determine their round-of-32 fate. Captain Son Heung-min and teammates warm up with a run. [Yonhap]
South Korea's national football team holds a recovery training session at Estadio Chivas Valle Verde in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Thursday (local time), their base camp, after falling to South Africa in their third Group A match at the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North America while awaiting results from other groups to determine their round-of-32 fate. Captain Son Heung-min and teammates warm up with a run. [Yonhap]

If South Korea advances to the round of 32 at the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North America, it will face the Group G winner in Seattle, Washington.

The South Korean squad, led by head coach Hong Myung-bo, finished the group stage third in Group A with one win and two losses — three points. In this expanded 48-team tournament, the top eight third-place finishers across all groups also advance to the round of 32. South Korea could not secure its spot on its own and is waiting on results from the remaining groups.

Senegal's 5-0 rout of Iraq in the final Group I match pushed South Korea down to seventh among third-place teams. Football statistics provider Opta lowered South Korea's round-of-32 probability to 36 percent. Spain's victory over Uruguay in the final Group H match, however, kept South Korea's hopes alive.

Under the tournament bracket, the Group A third-place team will face either the Group E winner in Boston on Tuesday, or the Group G winner — drawn from Belgium, Egypt, Iran and New Zealand — in Seattle on Wednesday.

Germany has been confirmed as the Group E winner. FIFA announced Saturday that Germany's round-of-32 opponent will be Paraguay, the Group D third-place finisher. That means South Korea, if it advances, is headed to Seattle.


yeongdai@heraldcorp.com