South Korea wary of Lebanon plan

Coach Choi Kang-Hee says South Korea must be ‘adventurous’ against Lebanon in Tuesday’s 2014 World Cup qualifier in Goyang.

The Taeguk Warriors opened their final round qualifying campaign with a 4-1 victory away to Qatar and Choi said at Monday’s press conference he wanted to build on that with another three points, although he was wary of a Lebanon likely to play on the counterattack.

“I’ve experienced defensive opponents and it’s really difficult to beat them,” Choi said.

“We have to be more adventurous but careful of counter attack. What we need is a goal and three points. We’ll focus on this.”

Choi pointed to the influence of wide men Lee Keun-Ho and Kim Bo-Kyung, who he this week likened to Park Ji-Sung, as the keys to unlocking the Lebanon defence.

“It’s also important not to allow them to counter-attack, while we should try to break down their defence through set-pieces and shots from distance,” he said.

“We’ve got some good wide players as well, so we’ll be able to beat them if we play our own football.”

Kim created two assists in Qatar on Friday but told reporters he wanted to score against the Cedars.

“I made two assists against Qatar but it was disappointing not to score. I want to score against Lebanon,” he said.

On the Park comparisons, he added: “I’m happy but I try not to care about it much.”

Meanwhile, Lebanon coach Theo Bucker said his side’s morale was up after Friday’s 1-1 draw with Uzbekistan gave them their point of the campaign after an opening 1-0 loss to Qatar.

“I would like to thank our players for their superb performance against Uzbekistan. The performance and result against Uzbekistan pushed our morale for the South Korea trip,” he said.

Bucker’s side were humbled 6-0 by the Taeguk Warriors in South Korea in third round qualifying and the German admitted they were up against it in attempting to reverse that result.

“Tomorrow’s match will be a challenge for us. We remember we were well beaten here last time and in fact, we’re not expecting too much this time around,” Bucker said.

“That said, we’ll do our best to get the best possible result. When we came last year we were under-prepared because of the fixtures in the local professional league, and we were also unlucky because the players had to come through a Ramadan period just before the match.

“In the mean time we’ve shown progress through training and become a different side, so I’m hoping to see a different result tomorrow.”