Casey Yu-jin Phair made World Cup historical past Tuesday in Sydney, Australia.
Phair entered South Korea’s 2-0 loss to Colombia within the 77th minute within the nation’s first recreation on the World Cup this month. At 16 years outdated, that formally made Phair the youngest to ever take the pitch at a ladies’s World Cup.
The earlier file belonged to Nigeria’s Ifeanyi Chiejine. She was 16 years and 34 days outdated when she made her debut in 1999. Phair beat that mark by simply eight days.
Phair was born in Korea however grew up in america. Her mother in Korean, and her dad is American. They moved to the U.S. when she was only a month outdated, and she or he began taking part in soccer only a few years later. They settled in New Jersey, the place she scored 25 targets in 15 video games final fall as a freshman on the Pingry College. Phair has skilled with each america ladies’s nationwide crew camp and South Korea’s, although the latter rapidly gained out.
Phair scored 5 targets in simply two video games with South Korea’s U-17 crew in Asian Cup qualifying earlier this spring. It wasn’t lengthy after that that she was drafted as much as the senior crew, and ultimately she made the World Cup roster — which made her the primary mixed-heritage participant to take action within the crew’s historical past. A lot of Phair’s household nonetheless lives in South Korea, and her dad, Shane, estimates that they spend about half of their time within the nation.
“If there’s one factor that we would like the world to know, it’s how passionate she is about competing and in regards to the Korean nationwide crew, and the way dedicated she is to serving to the crew win,” Shane informed The Athletic. “On the finish of the day, she is concentrated on successful. That’s the mentality. She’s all the time been like that.”
Colombia took a 2-0 lead earlier than halftime Tuesday and ran away with the match. Catalina Usme scored first within the thirtieth minute on a penalty kick, after which Linda Caicedo scored once more lower than 10 minutes later. They held on the remainder of the way in which and shut South Korea out to take the 2-0 win.
South Korea will tackle Morocco subsequent on Saturday earlier than taking part in a remaining recreation in Group H in opposition to Germany subsequent week.
