Gangwon exerted early pressure, with Mo Jae-hyeon seeing his attempt to play an enticing ball across the face of goal cut out by Takuya Iwanami, conceding a corner.

From the set piece, the home side went in front, Marko Tuci’s sliced shot looping into the path of Lee Sang-heon, who stroked his right foot shot emphatically past Shuichi Gonda.

Gangwon’s second came in the 21st minute, Mo rising high to meet Kim Dae-won’s corner from the right to power his downward header past Gonda.

 

Jean Patrick had a rare sight of goal for the visitors, the Brazilian seeing his shot on the turn from 15 yards out blocked by goalkeeper Park Chung-hyo but, with a little over two minutes left in the half the K League outfit went further in front.

Once again Kobe failed to fully clear a corner and, when the ball fell to Song Jun-seok, the defender threaded his shot through a crowd of players to find the bottom left corner of Gonda’s goal.

Kobe coach Takayuki Yoshida introduced Taisei Miyashiro and Daiju Sasaki at halftime to lift his struggling side and, within three minutes of the restart the visitors had pulled one back when Miyashiro pounced on a mistake by the defence to slide the ball past Park.

Two minutes later, Kobe struck again with Jean Patrick rising unmarked to head home Rikuto Hirose’s centre from the right and, with the clock ticking down, Miyashiro hit his side’s third when he turned to thump the ball past Park at close range.

But Gangwon refused to concede and Kim pounced inside the six yard box to thump the ball past Gonda to earn the side from Korea Republic a remarkable win despite Mo Jae-hyeon’s late red card for a second bookable offence.

The result moves Gangwon level with Kobe on six points from the first three matches in the eastern league phase and leaves both clubs a point adrift of table toppers Ulsan HD.