“I’m happy that our starting line-up finally gelled, and doubly so that it came at this stage,” said Kim, who plays for Seoul’s Daedong Taxation High School. 

“We were well-balanced in offence and defence, organised and fast at switching, and those points worked in our favour.” 

While he was happy with his showing, the 17-year-old felt he could have done better. 

“I should have had more goals but I missed. I will also need to work on my passing and dribbling for the next match.”

Head coach Back Ki-tae attributed his team’s win to the realisation that they had a few options to choose from coming into their match.

“Our strategy in the first match was to break down Indonesia’s low block defence,” he said. “But today we played as we always do, in a 4-3-3 formation, and that made the difference as we took the opportunities we had and scored.”

Afghanistan head coach Elias Manuocher was gracious in defeat.

  

“I congratulate Korea Republic,” he said. “It was an experience playing a team of their calibre. We failed to convert some chances but all in all, we performed better than our first match.” 

Korea Republic will meet Yemen on Thursday to determine the second team from Group C to advance to the FIFA U-17 World Cup Qatar 2025. Afghanistan will bid goodbye to Saudi Arabia 2025 in their match against Indonesia.