Ten-man South Korea beat United Arab Emirates 2-0 in Asian Cup

South Korea beat United Arab Emirates 2-0 in their second group B game at the 2004 Asian Cup at Shan Dong stadium Friday in Jinan, kicking the UAE out of the tounament.

Ahn Jung Hwan, the striker who scored the goal that eliminated Italy and sent South Korea historically into semifinals of 2002 World Cup, sealed their win in injury time, giving his team three points in Group B to top the group with Jordan, who beat Kuwait with the same score in the previous game.

"We have some players who could not play for this game, due to injuries and red cards, which gave us some pressure in the game," said South Korea coach Jo Bonfrere after the match.

South Korea, who were humiliated by Jordan with a goalless draw last week, looked more desperate to win the game, and their hard work got paied off on 41 minutes when their spearhead Lee Dong Gook headed their opener to lift them to a 1-0 lead.

"But we dealt the pressure well, and won the game" added Bonfrere, who thought his team did a really good job in the game.

United Arab Emirates, who lost 3-1 to Kuwait in their first game, slowly found their pace after South Korean Park Jae-hong was sent off with second yellow card in the 56th minute.

"We were just unlucky, otherwise, the winner would be us tonight," said United Arab Emirates coach Demos Aad.

Although the UAE dominated the rest of the game, they found it was still hard for them to change the score.

"I would not blame my players, because they had tried their best tonight, we were unlucky tonight." added Demos.

In the 78th minute, Bonfrere surprisingly sent Ahn Jung Hwan into the field to substitute Lee Dong Gook. And the Dutchman's trust got paied off in the injury time when Ahn latched on to a pass from Seol Ki hyeon and scored a goal with a low shot.

Source: Xinhua