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At the 2002 FIFA World Cup, the knockout stage was the second and final stage of the tournament, following the group stage. The top two teams from each group (16 total) advance to the knockout stage to compete in a single-elimination style tournament. A third place match is included and played between the two losing teams of the semi-finals.
Note: Match kickoff times are given in local (South Korea and Japan) time; this is KST and JST (UTC+9) during summer time.
South Korea vs Italy
Members of the Italian team, most notably striker Francesco Totti and coach Giovanni Trapattoni, suggested a conspiracy to eliminate Italy from the competition. Trapattoni even obliquely accused FIFA of ordering the official to ensure a Korean victory so that one of the two host nations would remain in the tournament. FIFA President Sepp Blatter stated that the linesmen had been a "disaster" and admitted that Italy suffered from bad offside calls from the group matches, but he denied conspiracy allegations. While ruling Totti's sending off by Moreno, Blatter refused to blame Italy's loss on Moreno but stated: "Italy's elimination is not only down to referees and linesmen who made human not premeditated errors ... Italy made mistakes both in defense and in attack."