South Korea players celebrate their Round of 16 victory against Saudi Arabia.
Doha, Qatar: South Korea coach Jurgen Klinsmann is confident his team will be completely ready to take on Australia in the Asian Cup quarter-finals after earning a thrilling victory over Saudi Arabia in an epic last 16 battle.
The Taeguk Warriors prevailed in arguably the best match of the tournament, beating Roberto Mancini’s Saudi Arabia 4-2 on penalties after a 1-1 draw in a nail-biter at Education City Stadium on Tuesday night.
The two-time champions are now facing a challenge to recover in time after the marathon match as they meet a strong Australian side in the quarter-final tomorrow.
But Klinsmann is not worried as he said the morale-boosting victory against the Green Falcons will help the side overcoming any lingering fatigue.
“This win gives the team an enormous amount of energy, it gives the team even more spirit,” said the German legend, who has won the World Cup as a player.
South Korea coach Jurgen Klinsmann
“This is a group of players I enjoy so much working with because they badly want to do well for their country.”
Australia cruised into the quarter-finals with a 4-0 thrashing of Indonesia and Klinsmann was expecting another tough match, saying his team will give their hundred percent in the match.
“Australia will be as much drama as Saudi Arabia. They deserve a lot of respect. It’s a very good team,” the coach said. “We have two days less of recovery time between our games. But we will give everything we have against Australia. We want to go until the end of the tournament. This team is capable of doing that.”
The Taeguk Warriors bounced back in the penultimate minute of the match against Saudi Arabia with substitute Cho Gue-Sung scoring the equaliser following Abdullah Radif’s strike in 46th minute. The Klinsmann’s side launched a barrage of attacks in extra-time but could not scored the decisive goal as the game moved to the penalty shootout.
“We wanted to win the game badly before the penalty shootout. Anything can happen in a penalty shootout,” he said.
“We feel very, very proud of this team that believed in coming back the whole game. It was a drama. This team went better and better. We should have scored earlier. At least we won the penalty shootout. This team is fantastic. They deserved this win,” Klinsmann added.
Goalkeeper Jo Hyeon-Woo emerged as the hero blocking Abdulrahman Ghareeb and Sami Al Naji’s hits in the penalties to steer the team into quarter-finals as all four South Korean players scored in their attempts.
“We were prepared for the penalty shootout. We trained for penalties. We were mentally prepared for it. It was wonderful to see all four execute it calmly and precisely. We absolutely deserved to win,” said Klinsmann.
