{"id":213527,"date":"2026-06-12T12:37:47","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T12:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/south-korea-beats-czech-republic-but-why-all-the-empty-seats-at-world-cups-second-game-the-new-york-times\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T12:37:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T12:37:47","slug":"south-korea-beats-czech-republic-but-why-all-the-empty-seats-at-world-cups-second-game-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/south-korea-beats-czech-republic-but-why-all-the-empty-seats-at-world-cups-second-game-the-new-york-times\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korea beats Czech Republic but why all the empty seats at World Cup\u2019s second game? – The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

World Cup
World Cup 2026
LIVE
27m ago<\/span>
There were swathes of empty seats at the Akron Stadium for Thursday's game Paul Childs\/Reuters<\/span>
The Athletic has live coverage of <\/span><\/i>Canada vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina<\/span><\/i><\/a> in the <\/span><\/i>2026 FIFA World Cup<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i>
There were large sections of empty seats at the Akron Stadium in Guadalajara as South Korea fought back from behind to beat Czech Republic 2-1 in the second game of the World Cup.
Complaints about ticket prices<\/a>, travel costs and visa issues have been a big theme of the build-up to a tournament that is being held in Mexico, Canada and the United States. At the second smallest of the 16 venues, there appeared to be thousands of unoccupied seats.
In the game, Son Heung-min had the best chances of a disjointed first half, shooting wide from the edge of the box and then failing to sort out his feet when he had a fine opportunity to score just before half-time.
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South Korea had the better of that half but it was Czech Republic who took the lead from a long throw that was headed in by Ladislav Krejci \u2014 their first attempt on target on 59 minutes.
Eight minutes later the game was level when Hwang In-beom clipped the ball deftly over the onrushing Matej Kovar and Oh Hyeon-Gyu completed the comeback on 86 minutes.
Here The Athletic<\/em>\u2019s Jacob Whitehead explains the key talking points.
\u201cUntil today, we have sold over six million tickets,\u201d FIFA president Gianni Infantino said at his pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday<\/a>. \u201cThe demand has been unprecedented, not by a little bit, but by a factor of 10 or more.\u201d
Well, if that was the case, nobody told Guadalajara. There were swathes of empty seats at the Akron Stadium, situated on the city\u2019s western edge. These were particularly concentrated towards the pitchside VIP section at the centre of the east stand, but patches of red seats could be seen throughout \u2014 leaving what looked like thousands of empty seats in total.
Tickets in the lower tier cost $500, with those on the sidelines at the top of the stadium\u2019s bowl priced at $400. A large number of empty seats appeared to be in hospitality, costing over $5,000 if purchased by supporters, rather than given away by corporate sponsors.
This game was the first true test of the World Cup\u2019s pricing plan \u2014 Mexico\u2019s home opener at the Azteca Stadium was always going to sell out. South Korea vs Czech Republic, by contrast, took place between the world\u2019s 25th and 37th-ranked sides in one of the tournament\u2019s poorest host cities.
Mexican fans still dominated the supporter numbers \u2014 conspicuous in the shirt of the national side \u2014 with a healthy number of South Koreans, but there were very few Czech fans. Czech Republic only qualified for the tournament at late notice in March with their team facing hefty amounts of travel \u2014 they will cover the third-most miles of any team in the group stages.
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FIFA announced the official attendance as 44,985 \u2014 the Akron has an official capacity for the tournament of 45,664, making it the second-smallest venue in use at the World Cup behind Toronto.
That implied just 700 seats remained unsold \u2014 which clearly undersold the huge stretches of empty space. The Athletic<\/em> asked FIFA if the attendance was based on ticket sales or numbers through the gate. In response, a FIFA spokesperson could not answer, sating they could only \u201crefer to the official attendance\u201d.
South Korea launch furious comeback \u2014 despite Son\u2019s spurned chances
In many ways, this tournament may be Son\u2019s final bow at the very top level. The Tottenham Hotspur legend has not been tearing up trees in MLS, in which he is goalless all season in league play for LAFC.
The forward has always been able to turn it on when it matters, however \u2014 look at the 2018-19 Champions League run, or his talismanic leadership at the 2018 Asian Games, in which South Korea\u2019s victory saved him from mandatory military service \u2014 and the expectation was that the World Cup would see one more magic moment from the 33-year-old.
Well, those opportunities came, many of them.
In the first half, he narrowly curled wide with his left foot from just over 20 yards, though without pressure on him, would have expected to find the corner. Then, in the seconds before half-time, he sold a stepover, played the ball out to the left wing \u2014 but narrowly missed out on making proper contact with the return pass.
His most egregious miss came early in the second period, when he failed to lift the ball over Czech \u2018keeper Kovar \u2014 in short, the instincts which served him for a decade in north London appeared to be on the wane.
Those misses opened the door for the Czech Republic, who duly walked through it via a bullet header from Krejci, powering home Vladimir Coufal\u2019s long throw.
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It put the pressure on a South Korean side who have been the subject of heavy home criticism after a 4-0 defeat by Ivory Coast in March, and who are expected to reach the knockout stages at a minimum.
Much has been made of the fitness of Feyenoord midfielder Hwang \u2014 who finally delivered South Korea the goal that their dominance had merited, lobbing Kovar after a smart turn, his finish the successful epitome of what Son had tried earlier in the game.
Oh\u2019s winner 20 minutes later was much uglier, ricocheting in off Kovar from a toe-poke \u2014 but it came from a direct run on goal that Son had not been making. It should be said that Son was not alone in a disappointing performance
After Mexico\u2019s 2-0 win over South Africa in Mexico City earlier in the day, South Korea\u2019s victory meant that both favourites in Group A had successful starts to their campaign. Players of The Athletic<\/em>\u2019s pick\u2019em game<\/a> successfully backed both results, with South Korea winning 51 per cent of the vote pre-game, with just 16 per cent opting for a Czech victory.
In all probability, both Mexico and South Korea will need just one more win to put themselves in the knockout stages \u2014 while the Czech Republic will likely need to beat South Africa before getting a result against Mexico in their final game to progress.
\"\"
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source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

World CupWorld Cup 2026LIVE27m agoThere were swathes of empty seats at the Akron Stadium for Thursday's game Paul Childs\/ReutersThe Athletic has live coverage of Canada vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 2026 FIFA World Cup.There were large sections of empty seats at the Akron Stadium in Guadalajara as South Korea fought back from behind to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":213528,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-213527","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}