Soon enough, the second half was about to begin, and players from both teams also came out of the tunnel. Mamoru had already been preparing to come in, but he wasn't the only one there. South Korean player with the jersey number 7 was also warming up next to the fourth referee, waiting for the man to announce the substitution.
After a while, they were finally allowed to step in, and to everyone's surprise, that number 7 was replacing Cho Young-Wook, the team's target man on the front line.
The surprise was that Cho did a very good job in containing Ito and Kobayashi in the first half. His presence was so strong that it was hard to ignore, giving Park Han-Gyeol and Oh Se-Hun so many chances to sneak into Japan's defense. Even though in the end, no goal was created, his presence was still a headache for Japan to solve.
Still, the fact that Cho was out didn't send a relief toward Japan's defensive line. If anything, it added more pressure, because this only meant one thing.
