South Korea vs Yemen

Sixteen tournaments against three

South Korea were at the first Asian Cup ever played, in 1956, and won it. This is their sixteenth appearance. Yemen have been twice in half a century, and South Yemen, a state that no longer exists, played the earlier of the two.

The records barely belong on the same page. Two titles for South Korea, both from the opening decade of the competition, and nothing since 1960, a wait of sixty-seven years, the longest of any former champion in Saudi Arabia. Yemen have never got out of a group. They did not qualify for 2023 at all.

King Abdullah Sports City in Jeddah holds 60 000. For a Yemeni side playing its first Asian Cup match in eight years, against the team with the most tournament history in Group E, it is about as steep an introduction as the draw could have produced.

The two records

This is a sixteenth Asian Cup for South Korea, whose best finish is winners (1956, 1960), against a third for Yemen, best group stage (1976, 2019). The Yemen finish was as South Yemen.