The Bayer Leverkusen midfielder settled an extremely tight semi-final when he netted at the second attempt from Oliver Neuville’s cross.

His goal brought an end to South Korea’s remarkable World Cup run, although no doubt they will paint Daegu red for Saturday’s third-fourth play-off.

Korea is known as the Land of the Morning Calm - but the country was anything but from early this morning.

Once again millions of Koreans took to the streets bedecked in their ‘Be the Reds’ T-shirts chanting their by-now familiar cries of ‘Tae-han-min-guk’ (Republic of Korea) and ‘Oh, pil-sung Korea’ (Oh, victory Korea).

More than 65,000 packed into the Seoul World Cup stadium - and tickets had been changing hands for as much as €2,620 - to make the stands a sea of red.

Korea were without the injured Kim Nam-il, while golden boy Ahn Jung-hwan and Seol Ki-hyeon could only start on the bench.

In came veteran striker Hwang Sun-hong, who scored in Germany’s 3-2 win when these sides met at USA 94, Cha Doo-ri and Lee Chun-soo.

Liverpool’s Dietmar Hamann passed a fitness test for Germany, while in came Carsten Ramelow and Marco Bode in place of Tottenham’s Christian Ziege and Sebastian Kehl.

Lee Woon-jae saved from Bernd Schneider after 80 seconds before Oliver Kahn made two good saves, first from Cha and then from Park Ji-sung.

Germany went straight up the other end, and Lee blocked a volley from Neuville from just outside the area.

Little had been seen of five-goal Miroslav Klose until midway through the half he demonstrated an unsavoury side to his game when he dived in the area when challenged by Kim Tae-young in an attempt to win a penalty.

Referee Urs Meier saw through his shabby antics and gave nothing, although he would have been justified in booking the German.

The half-chances continued after the break, and Bode headed wide from Neuville’s corner.

Korea switched tack early in the second half when the patched-up Ahn replaced Hwang and Lee Min-sung came on for Choi.

Klose finally managed a header on goal from Ballack’s cross only for Lee to save comfortably before he volleyed harmlessly wide from Ramelow’s ball.

His next act was to walk off when the tournament’s joint-leading scorer was replaced by old hand Oliver Bierhoff.

Ballack’s moment of despair came on 71 minutes when he was cautioned for a foul outside the area on Lee.

Rather than cry like Paul Gascoigne famously did in Turin, he responded by scoring the goal which put his country in the final.

Neuville broke down the right and centred for the onrushing Ballack. Lee saved his first effort, but he followed up to tap home the rebound.

Lee denied Germany a second when he punched away Bode’s free-kick at his near post.

Korea pushed until the very end, and Park blazed over from a decent opening in the box in stoppage time.