South Korea trounce UAE in Kuala Lumpur

Ki-hun, Yong-jae and Jung-hyub score to hand Mahdi’s team 3-0 defeat

The UAE and South Korea played a friendly in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday as part of build-up for the upcoming 2018 Fifa World Cup and 2019 AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers. — Supplied photo

Dubai — Three goals from midfielder Yeom Ki-hun, Yong-jae and substitute Lee Jung-hyub earned South Korea a comfortable 3-0 victory over UAE at the Shah Alam Stadium in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday. The warm-up clash is part of the both side’s build-up for the upcoming 2018 Fifa World Cup and 2019 AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers.

“It was a big game and we have managed to try as many numbers of the players as possible,” said UAE head coach Mahdi Ali, who made five replacements during the break and the second half.

After the slow start from the UAE side, the Koreans took over and dictated their pace to put their opponents under strong pressure. The confrontation between the speedy Korean strikers and UAE defenders saw Yeom finding the back of the net less than a minute before the interval with a surface-to-surface long range free-kick from the mouth of the box.

Thereafter, the 2015 AFC Asian Cup runners-up increased their pressure on their Middle Eastern opponents and shifted all their operations to the rival territories with keeper Kim Seung-gyu rarely tested throughout the first period.

Mahdi Ali got into action by the end of the first half with four replacements to make some changes in the midfield and upfront. He sent in Majid Hasan to replace Amir Abdul Rahman, Ismail Al Hammadi instead of Amir Omer, Mohammed Al Akbari to substitute Bander Al Ahbabi and Saeed Al Kathiri to take over from Ahmed Khalil. Later on, the UAE coach pulled out Khamis Ismail and replaced him with Habib Fardan.

And while the Whites began to show some improvements, the Koreans doubled the scoreline at the hour mark from a long throw-in which was easily put in the net by Jin-su to make the mission of the UAE lads more complicated. Meanwhile, both sides slowed down the pace of the match in the concluding stages probably to keep themselves away from injury ahead of respective opening clashes in the qualifiers on Tuesday where UAE play East Timor and Korea take on Myanmar.

But, in all cases, the UAE strikers failed to impress and did nothing to make their presence felt in midfield or upfront. No real threat was posed by the UAE strikers with the exception of some few shy attempts from Saeed Al Kathiri, who was virtually isolated from the rest of the field.

UAE’s playmaker Omer Abdul Rahman’s moves remained limited and most of his passes were either intercepted by the Korean defenders or went astray. And under the circumstances, the ruthless Koreans increased their tally to 3-0 in the dying seconds of the almost one-sided game when Jung-hyub found the net from a doubtful offside position.