BRASILIA: Mexico’s reign as Olympic football champions is over. Their 1-0 defeat by South Korea in Brasilia, combined with Germany’s 10-0 thrashing of no-hopers Fiji, meant they were pushed down to third place in Group C and eliminated.

As results stood at half-time with Germany leading Fiji 6-0 in Belo Horizonte, outh Korea knew they would advance to the quarter-finals with a draw while Mexico had to win.

Mexico created the majority of the goalscoring opportunities but midfielder Kwon Changhoon popped up with a single moment of brilliance in the 77th minute to send his team through to the quarter-finals and condemn El Tri to an early flight home.

The Mexicans had created more scoring chances with Erick Torres and Erick Gutierrez always threatening but never quite dangerous enough to pierce the Korean defence.

South Korea face Honduras in the quarter-finals in Belo Horizonte on Saturday while Germany play Portugal in Brasilia.

Meanwhile Germany scored the highest win of the finals by despatching hapless Fiji 10-0 at the Estadio Mineirao in Belo Horizonte. They led 6-0 at the interval and added four more in the second half, with Nils Petersen and Max Meyer helping themselves to five and three goals respectively.

Serge Gnabry took his own tally to five for the tournament with a first-half double.

Max Meyer scored the other German goal for veteran coach Horst Hrubesch’s men.

Germany thus leapfrogged Mexico into second place and meet Portugal in Brasilia on Saturday’s quarter-finals.

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