South Korea beat El Salvador 1-0 in final World Cup warmup

South Korea wrapped up its final pre-World Cup warmup with a victory.

The national team defeated El Salvador 1-0 Thursday at Brigham Young University's South Field in Provo, near Salt Lake City, Utah. Lee Dong-gyeong of Ulsan scored the only goal on a free kick 12 minutes into the second half.

Four days earlier, South Korea had routed Trinidad and Tobago 5-0 at the same venue. Head coach Hong Myung-bo's side closed out its Salt Lake City training camp with two consecutive clean-sheet wins and heads into the World Cup group stage in good spirits.

The results also snapped a poor run that had seen the side go scoreless in two straight defeats during a European tour in March. South Korea topped Group B in the Asian final qualifying round last June with six wins and four draws, securing a record 11th consecutive World Cup berth, but managed only six wins, one draw and three losses across 10 friendlies from the second half of last year onward.

El Salvador, ranked 100th by FIFA, were heavy underdogs against South Korea, who sit 75 places higher at 25th. Hong had sought out altitude opponents to help the squad acclimatize ahead of the tournament.

Cho Gue-sung of Midtjylland, who came off the bench four days earlier against Trinidad and Tobago and scored twice, started as the lone striker. With Son Heung-min of LAFC and Oh Hyeon-gyu of Besiktas on the bench, Hwang Hee-chan of Wolverhampton and Lee Dong-gyeong handled the wide attacking roles on the left and right, respectively.

Hwang In-beom of Feyenoord and Lee Jae-sung of Mainz anchored the midfield, while Lee Tae-seok of Vienna and Seol Young-woo of Zvezda were deployed as wing-backs. The three-man defensive line, from left to right, consisted of Lee Gi-hyeok of Gangwon, Kim Min-jae of Bayern Munich and Lee Han-beom of Midtjylland, with Kim Seung-gyu of Tokyo in goal.

Unable to break through in the first half, Hong replaced Lee Han-beom with Jo Wi-je of Jeonbuk and Kim Seung-gyu with Song Beom-geun, also of Jeonbuk, at the start of the second half.

The breakthrough came in the 57th minute when Lee Dong-gyeong converted a free kick. After drawing a foul just to the right of the penalty arc, Lee stepped up and drove a left-footed shot toward the near post, finding the net. It was his fourth international goal.

In the 63rd minute, Hong made eight substitutions at once, sending on Baek Seung-ho of Birmingham City, Kim Jin-gyu of Jeonbuk, Park Jin-seop of Zhejiang, Jens Castrop of Borussia Monchengladbach, Lee Kang-in of Paris Saint-Germain, Oh Hyeon-gyu, Son Heung-min and Yang Hyun-jun of Celtic. Lee Jae-sung, Hwang In-beom, Kim Min-jae, Lee Gi-hyeok, Lee Dong-gyeong, Cho Gue-sung, Hwang Hee-chan and Seol Young-woo came off.

Son had a golden chance in the 68th minute when Castrop's cutback found him directly in front of goal, but his shot sailed well over the crossbar.

South Korea set up its training camp in Salt Lake City, which sits 1,460 meters above sea level, on May 18 to build altitude fitness ahead of matches in Guadalajara. The squad will fly by charter Saturday to Guadalajara, Mexico — the site of their first two group-stage matches and the team's base camp.