{"id":13786,"date":"2018-06-14T10:30:57","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T01:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/?p=13786"},"modified":"2018-06-14T00:41:02","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T15:41:02","slug":"six-great-asian-players-in-world-cup-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/2018\/06\/14\/six-great-asian-players-in-world-cup-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Six great Asian players in World Cup history"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite\u00a0the ambition and potential, the performances and results of the Asian nations leading up to the World Cup finals have been far from impressive.<\/p>\n

However, the continent has brought\u00a0inspirational figures who\u00a0were stunning the world in the previous tournaments. Who are the most Asian football stars at World Cup finals? Click through to find out!<\/p>\n

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Lee Won-jae\u00a0(South Korea)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lee Won-jae\u00a0was one of the key players in South Korea’s incredible 2002 World Cup adventure. He produced a series of sublime saves to keep Korea in the game, then blocked Joaquin’s penalty in the shootout to help his nation become the first Asian side to reach the semi-finals of a World Cup.<\/p>\n

Known as “Spider Hands” by the local supporters and media, Lee was part of Korea’s 1994, 2002, 2006 and 2010 FIFA World Cup campaigns.<\/p>\n

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Lucas Neil (Australia)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lucas Neil took the captain position of the Socceroos in 2006 and 2010 World Cup tournaments and is also the team’s longest-serving captain, having worn the armband on 61 occasions. The classy and versatile defender\u00a0was arguably the Socceroos\u2019 best in the defending line, helping his side compete against word’s elites such as Germany, Brazil and Croatia.<\/p>\n

His infamous tackle on Italy’s Fabio Grosso in 2006 is one of the most controversial moments of Australia in World Cups, but he handled the iconic moment with dignity throughout the ordeal.\u00a0Francesco Totti then converted the ensuing penalty kick to score and give the Italians a 1\u20130 victory, knocking Australia out of the cup.<\/p>\n

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Hidetoshi Nakata (Japan)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Appearing in three World Cups and making his name in Serie A and the Premier League, Hidetoshi Nakata is widely considered one of Japan’s greatest football legends.<\/p>\n

Representing his country\u00a0in three FIFA World Cup tournaments (1998, 2002 and 2006), Nakata was the star man whose attacking contributions were of great importance for the Blue Samurai at the world’s playing field. The retired player accrued 77 caps and scored 11 for Japan over the course of his career.<\/p>\n

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Park Ji-sung (South Korea)<\/strong><\/p>\n

When it comes to Korean milestones at the FIFA World Cup, it’s hard to look beyond the great performance of Park Ji-sung at his country’s historical achievement in 2002 edition.\u00a0One of the most decorated Korean footballers, the former Manchester United also represented his nation at the 2006 FIFA World Cup and was captain at the 2010\u00a0tournament.<\/p>\n

Park is the first South Korean and the only second Asian player to score in all three consecutive tournaments. The so-called “Three-lungs” currently Asia’s joint all-time leading goalscorer at the FIFA World Cup finals with three goals. During his international career, he netted the goals of many football powerhouses, including Portugal, France and Greece.<\/p>\n

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Keisuke Honda (Japan)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Keisuke Honda has earned over 90 international caps since 2008, playing for Japan at the 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cups. He earned the prolific recognization when scoring a magnificent free kick in the 17th minute from 30 yards out in the final group-stage game against Denmark in Brazil 2014. In the previous tournament,\u00a0Honda was the player to score the only goal for the Blue Samurai.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old also joined Inamoto in becoming the only Japanese players to score more than one goal at a single World Cup campaign. He has been included in Japan’s squad for Russia 2018 after thriving as Mexican side Pachuca’s chief playmaker this season.<\/p>\n

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Tim Cahill (Australia)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tim Cahill played his first World Cup for the Socceroos in 2006 in Germany, where he scored the nation\u2019s first-ever World Cup goal, before adding another goal to a 3-1 victory over Japan in the opening group game.<\/p>\n

The 38-year-old has scored 50 goals in 105 appearances and\u00a0became the highest Asian scorer in World Cup’s history as he added two more goals in Brazil 2014.<\/p>\n

Part of the Socceroos\u2019 squad for Russia 2018, Cahill will have a chance to cement his status as one of the players to feature in four consecutive World Cups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite\u00a0the ambition and potential, the performances and results of the Asian nations leading up to the World Cup finals have been far from impressive. However, the continent has brought\u00a0inspirational figures who\u00a0were stunning the world in the previous tournaments. Who are the most Asian football stars at World Cup finals? Click through to find out!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":13794,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,50],"tags":[637,926,1560,382,1561,1562,727,1037],"class_list":["post-13786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-fifa-world-cup","tag-2018-world-cup","tag-asia","tag-hidetoshi-nakata","tag-keisuke-honda","tag-lee-won-jae","tag-lucas-neil","tag-park-ji-sung","tag-tim-cahill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}