Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Vientiane: Korea Republic maintained their 100% record in the 2018 FIFA World Cup/2019 AFC Asian Cup joint-qualifiers on Tuesday as the Group G leaders made it six-wins-out-of-six with a 5-0 defeat of Laos.
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What was always going to be a tough match for the South East Asians was made considerably harder after the hosts found themselves on the back foot with just three minutes at the National Sports Complex Stadium played, when Ki Sung-yueng opened the scoring from the penalty spot.
After scoring his first goal of the qualifiers, the Korea Republic skipper got has second in the 33rd minute with a fine angled drive following a clever cutback from Park Joo-hoo before Tottenham Hostpur forward Son Heung-min made it 3-0 just two minutes later.
The 2015 AFC Asian Cup runners-up would go into the half-time interval with a four-goal cushion after Suk Hyun-jun - who opened his Korea Republic scoring account as the Taeguek Warriors defeated Laos 8-0 in the reverse Group G fixture back in September.
After conceding four in the first half Laos put in a much stronger defensive display after the interval and restricted the nine-time FIFA World Cup qualifiers to just a single goal with Son, scorer of a hat-trick in Hwaseong, sealing the 5-0 win with his fifth of the qualifiers in the 67th minute.
The group winners and four best runners-up (total 12 teams) will advance to the 2019 AFC Asian Cup finals and the final round of qualifying for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
The next best 24 teams from the preliminary stage of the joint qualifiers will compete in a separate competition for the remaining slots (12 slots or 11 slots + 1 slot for the host) in the 24-team 2019 Asian Cup.