Paul Smyth enjoys a dream debut after striking Northern Ireland to victory against World Cup-bound South Korea
Northern Ireland 2-1 South Korea: Queen’s Park Rangers striker comes off the substitutes’s bench to strike a late winner to begin Michael O’Neill’s second cycle
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Your support makes all the difference.It was an afternoon when many from Belfast and beyond came to witness South Korea’s Tottenham star, Heung-Min Son, to see if he would add to his 18 goals this season. They left discussing someone rather different, Paul Smyth, a local lad, who made an eight-minute debut, which included the winning goal.
Smyth, 20, recently played at Windsor Park for his Irish League club, Linfield. He left for Queen’s Park Rangers a few months ago and made his Championship debut on New Year’s Day.
He scored a fine goal then, cutting in from the left and it was the same here.
Having played for the Irish under-21s on Thursday night against Spain – when he impressed – Smyth was called up after the match by Michael O’Neill.
Less than 48 hours later, in the 82nd minute, O’Neill gave Smyth his first senior cap. Four minutes on from that the diminutive winger ran onto to a header from Conor Washington 18 yards out.
Smyth jinked inside a Korean defender, kept his balance and his composure and placed a right-footed shot low into the bottom corner in front of the Windsor Park Kop, where he first played as a 17 year-old.
He celebrated with a somersault, then another. As O’Neill revealed afterwards, Smyth can do that as he weighs less than ten stone.
“It’s fabulous for the boy,” O’Neill said. “Our intention was always to have Paul in the squad but we didn’t tell him until after the under-21 game.
“Paul’s a player we’ve known since he was at Linfield. He’s been our under-19s and we took him to France [Euro 2016], so he knows the players. He was there for 40-odd days.
“I just asked him if he had ten minutes’ running in him.”
Smyth responded with energy and enthusiasm. His appearance and goal may matter more as the Republic of Ireland are interested in him and until Smyth makes his competitive international debut, he could switch Association. He indicated afterwards that he will be staying with Northern Ireland.
It all made for a happy ending for O’Neill. This was Northern Ireland’s first time in Belfast after the World Cup play-off injustice against Switzerland and the first time since O’Neill extended his contract.
His team are evolving. Smyth was one of three debutants, alongside goalkeeper Trevor Carson and Norwich City’s 20 year-old Jamal Lewis, while Jordan Jones also made a full debut. They all coped with a Korean team that has Germany in its group in Russia.
The Koreans face Sweden first and considered Northern Ireland comparable opposition, tactically and physically.
They began well with Son prominent and were one up inside seven minutes.
Joo-ho Park, a midfielder formerly of Borussia Dortmund, chipped a neat pass beyond the Irish back four and Changhoon Kwon, who plays for Dijon in France, slid the ball calmly under the advancing Carson.
The Motherwell keeper then made a sharp save from Son, but gradually the Irish built their reply.
On 20 minutes a clever free-kick entailing a George Saville decoy run, an Oliver Norwood pass and a Jamie Ward cross resulted in an own goal from Minjae Kim.
The pace slackened after the interval as substitutions arrived regularly. One of them, Conor McLaughlin, made a late tackle on Shinwook Kim when it seemed the Korean striker was destined the score a winner.
Not long after that, on came Smyth and at the other end showed how it should be done. The asthmatic boy from the Falls Road who now gets the tube to training at QPR was beaming.
“I was freaking out, to be fair,” Smyth said of his Thursday night call-up. “But I got my game-head on once I got my chance.”
Teams
Northern Ireland (4-2-3-1): Carson; Hughes (McLaughlin 18) McAuley, J. Evans (Cathcart 68) Lewis; Norwood (McNair 72) C. Evans (Washington 62); Ward (Boyce 62) Saville, Jones (Smyth 83); Magennis
South Korea (4-4-2): S. Kim; Y. Lee, Jang, Minjae Kim, J. Kim (Minwoo Kim 36); C. Kwon (H. Hwang 62) J. Park (C. Lee 67) Ki (W. Jung 67) J. Lee; S. Kim, Son (Yeom 75)
Referee: B Madden
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