SHAH ALAM, Malaysia (Yonhap) — With strong efforts on both ends, South Korea defeated the United Arab Emirates (UAE) 3-0 on Thursday in its final football friendly before the start of the World Cup qualifiers.
South Korea will travel to Bangkok, Thailand, to face Myanmar in a World Cup qualifying match on Tuesday.
Former World Cup veteran Yeom Ki-hun, international rookie Lee Yong-jae and rising striker Lee Jeong-hyeop scored a goal apiece at Shah Alam Stadium in Shah Alam, Malaysia, as the 58th-ranked South Korea edged past the 73rd-ranked UAE for the 12th time in 19 meetings.
South Korea will travel to Bangkok, Thailand, to face Myanmar in a World Cup qualifying match on Tuesday.
Myanmar will be the home team; it’s serving FIFA sanctions for crowd-control problems and has been forced to play host at a neutral venue.
South Korea is seeking its ninth consecutive World Cup appearance.
After a quiet opening stretch, South Korea upped the pressure midway through the opening half. Yeom took an outlet pass from Lee Jae-sung but shot one well over the net in the 23rd minute.
Four minutes later, Lee Jae-sung caught UAE keeper Khalid Eisa out of position and took a shot into a gaping net, only to have it cleared out by a defender.
Forward Lee Yong-jae, making his international debut, joined the fray but his volley from point-blank range was punched out by Eisa.
Yeom, the Suwon Samsung Bluewings’ star who leads the top-flight K League Classic in scoring this year, finally solved Eisa with a low free kick. The UAE keeper stood frozen and helplessly watched the ball skip past him into the net.
Lee Yong-jae, forward for the second-division Japanese club V-Varen Nagasaki, doubled the lead at the hour mark. He gained possession on the left wing, dribbled toward the middle and fended off a defender to shoot one past Eisa.
Lee Jeong-hyeop, who replaced Lee Yong-jae in the second half, rounded out the scoring by converting a perfect feed from Nam Tae-hee deep in the UAE zone. It was Lee’s fourth goal in his 10th international appearance.
The UAE, a surprise semifinalist at the AFC Asian Cup in January, barely put up a fight and looked overmatched in the face of the South Korean attack.
The match was played under the cloud of a positive doping test for South Korean player Kang Soo-il. Moments before the kickoff, the K League, which governs South Korea’s professional football, announced the Jeju United forward tested positive for an anabolic steroid called methyltestosterone.
Kang was immediately ruled ineligible for the national team and is scheduled to return to South Korea later Thursday. Kang told the league he’d put on mustache-growing cream.
