Before the end of the first half, the North Korea team launched one final counterattack.
In the 44th minute, North Korea sent a cross in from the right. Li Weifeng and Feng Xiaoting made a mistake in coordination, leaving a gap in the Chinese team's central defense.
The ball fell to North Korean captain Kim Myong-gun, but his long-range shot lacked power and was collected by Li Leilei.
The first half ended with the score temporarily at 3-0.
This score was extremely favorable for the National Football Team, whose goal difference had already been better than North Korea's.
Now they had gained another three goals in goal difference from North Korea while handing their opponents a negative goal difference of three. Going back and forth, the gap in goal difference between the two sides had widened by six goals!
As long as the National Football Team did not lose in the second half, they could keep North Korea firmly beneath them thanks to their head-to-head record and superior goal difference.
Now, the National Football Team's only opponent was the South Korea team.
With South Korea's women's team having been held to a draw by the Japan team, as long as South Korea failed to defeat Japan in the next match, the Chinese team would securely claim first place in the mixed men's and women's competition.
"The tournament committee is a little too unprofessional. With three countries tied on points, the final round should have been scheduled to kick off at the same time no matter what!"
"Yeah, way too unprofessional. Now we've finished playing before the South Korea-Japan match even starts. That's completely unfair to us!"
"Try to understand. This is, after all, a competition hosted by the Koreans. It's already pretty good that they didn't pull any dirty tricks