SEOUL, 21 June — They have long been recognized, respected and, more recently, honored in their own land of South Korea.

Now a new audience around the world is warming to the exploits of Park Ji-sung, Seol Ki-hyeon, Ahn Jung-hwan and the rest. Crazy names, crazy guys, football crazy country, as the World Cup takes hold and brings the people on to the streets in numbers not dreamed of even by Mexico in 1986 or Argentina eight years earlier.

A mere 520,000 was the official police estimate of the audience watching on big screens erected in squares and plazas of cities up and down the country for the opening group match against Poland.

By Tuesday’s extraordinary triumph over Italy, which earned a quarterfinal tie against Spain this weekend, the figure had swollen to either four million or five million — who was counting? Who could?

The only numbers that matter now are those recorded almost disbelievingly on the scoreboards of either end of the throbbing red stadiums; and those on the home team’s white shirts (South Korea should be playing in red but Guus Hiddink, the coach, has decided that the white ones are lucky).

So come in, No. 21, Park Ji-sung, one of four players in the squad belonging to the Japanese clubs. In the case of Park, whose name and fame suddenly spread worldwide with one delicious piece of control before shooting the winning goal against Portugal last week, the club is the exotically titled Kyoto Purple Sanga. The 21-year-old, whose role out wide as a third striker has kept the pressure on all the Koreans’ opponents to date, caused something of a stir in his homeland by moving to Japan straight from school, but any perceived snub has been forgotten in the aftermath of that goal against the Portuguese.

Two days ago, it was difficult to imagine any single incident being shown more often on Korean television than Park’s big moment. Then Seol Ki-hyeon made the most of Christian Panucci’s shanked clearance to cap it, only to be outdone some 20 minutes later by Ahn Jung-hwan.

Neat symmetry here: the two central strikers, Nos. 9 and 19, and the only players in the squad employed by European clubs, neither of which has managed to find a regular place for them. Seol, the younger man by three years at 23, joined Royal Antwerp from university two summers ago and after only one season, earned a transfer to the Belgian capital with Anderlecht.

Despite becoming the first Korean to appear in the Champions’ League, he has not been able to win a regular spot at club level.

His attacking partner, Ahn, took an even bigger step in leaving Pusan Icons on a year’s loan for Perugia, who extended it to the end of this season while allowing him few opportunities. Of all the conflicting emotions reflected in his face as the magnitude of having headed Tuesday’s winning goal, began to sink in, proving a point to his Serie A club must have been in there somewhere. Yesterday Perugia showed what they thought of his efforts by sacking him.

It seems unlikely that there has been any other squad at this World Cup containing so many university graduates, or even a current student. Step forward the distinctively short-haired Cha Doo-ri, 21, who is still an amateur with the Korea University team, though he might just have had a little financial help recently toward buying a few textbooks. Cha, who came on as a substitute in midfield against Italy, is special in another sense, as the son of one of the country’s most famous players. His father, Cha Bum-kun, played in the Bundesliga in the early 1980s, represented South Korea in the 1986 World Cup and was their coach at France 1998.

In planning for tomorrow’s quarterfinal, Spain will at least have the benefit of studying South Korea’s previous games in the competition. For Poland, or even Scotland and England in pretournament friendlies, the briefings may have been difficult: “OK lads, watch out for a defender called Choi, the midfielder, Choi, and then there’s two attackers you need to keep an eye on, Choi and Choi. Got that, Sol?’’

Add a goalkeeper named Choi and five players called Lee, and any confusion in the ranks was perhaps, excusable.

Once they have sorted their Chois from their Lees, and then Pohang Steelers from the Suwon Bluewings, Spanish eyes will need to note two vastly experienced figures: the 33-year-olds Hong Myung-bo, a center-back, and Hwang Sun-hong, a reserved forward. Both have more than 100 internationals under their belt and are appearing at their fourth World Cup. After nine matches without a single victory, how different it must all seem this time around. (The Independent)