The bus driver didn't know where he was going. That's the short version. South Korea's men's football team arrived at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games and were promptly chauffeured to a baseball stadium — one that wasn't even hosting Asian Games events — instead of Mizuho Park Rugby Field, where they were due to kick off against Qatar. They made it, eventually, with just an hour to spare before kickoff.
They still won 4-1. Eom Ji-sung, the 24-year-old Swansea City forward playing as one of the permitted overage players, scored a hat trick. So the chaos didn't cost them on the pitch — this time.
A pattern, not a one-off
What makes this more than a funny anecdote is the follow-up. The day after the Qatar win, South Korea's bus for a recovery session simply didn't show up. The Korea Football Association had to scramble for a replacement. The team arrived 20 minutes late to a session designed to help players recover from the previous day's exertion. Two days in, two transport failures. That's an organisational problem, not bad luck.
And it's not just Korea. Vietnam's women's volleyball team were dropped at the wrong hotel on arrival and had to haul their luggage and equipment to the right one on foot. Indonesia's men's basketball team waited over 40 minutes for a bus on a matchday, with no explanation offered. The pattern across multiple sports and multiple national teams points to something systemic in how the organising committee is managing ground transportation.
For South Korea's football squad specifically, the stakes are real. This tournament doubles as the primary qualification route for military service exemptions — a pressure unique to Korean sport that makes every result carry weight beyond a medal. Disrupted preparation doesn't sink a team with this quality, but it's the kind of friction that accumulates over a long group stage and knockout rounds.
Lee Min-sung's side are the clear Group D favourites based on their opener. Whether the bus actually shows up to take them to their next match is, apparently, a separate question entirely.
