South Ko­rea man­aged to edge out fel­low Asian side Japan on Sat­ur­day night in Port of Spain to be crowned cham­pi­ons at a glob­al foot­balling com­pe­ti­tion for the first time in their his­to­ry. The thriller fin­ished 3-3 af­ter ex­tra time and need­ed a penal­ty shootout to de­cide the vic­tor. The end-to-end en­counter had fans at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um on the edge of their seats from start to fin­ish and was a fit­ting con­clu­sion to the 2010 FI­FA U-17 Women's World Cup in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

If any of the 22 young ladies down on the pitch were at all in­tim­i­dat­ed by the huge crowd or the pres­ence of heart­throb David Beck­ham up in the VIP tri­bune, they didn't show it in the first 12 min­utes. The Ko­re­ans marched up and scored the open­er with their first shot of the match. Lee Junge­un squared up to the ball in the sixth minute some 25 yards from goal and ar­rowed it to the top cor­ner.

Not to be out­done, the Nadeshiko re­peat­ed the trick, on­ly from far­ther out, five min­utes lat­er. Hikaru Nao­mo­to col­lect­ed from a poor clear­ance, con­trolled and slipped past one mark­er be­fore ham­mer­ing to­ward goal from 30 yards out. The Ko­re­an goal­keep­er got her gloves to the ball, but could on­ly palm it in­to the un­der­side of the cross­bar and in. The keep­er was curs­ing her bad luck and po­si­tion­ing again short­ly af­ter as Japan took the lead through a harm­less-look­ing ef­fort from Yoko Tana­ka that some­how slid un­der Kim Mi­nah and in­to the net to make the score 2-1.

The Ko­re­ans were hav­ing trou­ble get­ting the ball to tour­na­ment top scor­er Yeo Min Ji, but the rest of the Taeguk Ladies were more than will­ing to pick up the slack in at­tack. Cap­tain Kim Areum's free-kick from dis­tance flew up in­to the hu­mid night sky on the half hour and came crash­ing down against Hi­rao's cross­bar, with the keep­er well and tru­ly beat­en. She got it right on the stroke of half-time, how­ev­er, when her vi­cious set-piece from a full 40 yards lev­elled the scores.

The fans were able to catch their breath a bit as the sec­ond half be­gan at a less-fre­net­ic tem­po, but the lull in the ac­tion last­ed on­ly 11 min­utes and was bro­ken by the out­stand­ing Japan­ese winger Yokoya­ma. She bolt­ed past a pha­lanx of de­fend­ers, as she has done on so many oc­ca­sions at these fi­nals, and crossed low. Chi­ka Ka­to was on hand to poke home in­to the open net, fling­ing her­self at the de­flect­ed ball. Japan con­tin­ued to press for­ward, prod­ding for a fourth goal. It near­ly came in the 64th minute, but the Ko­re­an keep­er was some­how able to push Yoko Tana­ka's curl­ing shot against the post.

Yeo min Ji al­most drew lev­el again for the Ko­re­ans, but the ball came off the cross­bar and then off the head of Hi­rao, fail­ing to find the back of the net with 15 min­utes to go. They were re­ward­ed for their long-range in­stincts in the 79th minute, how­ev­er, when sub­sti­tute Lee So Dam thun­dered home from well out­side the box to force ex­tra time. Japan were the dom­i­nant side in the added pe­ri­ods, but they couldn't con­vert their chances and the game was de­cid­ed on penal­ties. De­fend­er Jang Sel­gi was the hero on the night, con­vert­ing the de­ci­sive spot-kick to see Ko­rea Re­pub­lic win their first world ti­tle in any age cat­e­go­ry of gen­der.