With a squad ravaged by illness and injury, that saw seven players who started the tournament opener against Oman left out of the match day squad altogether, Korea Republic were unconvincing for large patches of Tuesday's game against Kuwait, but nevertheless scored the contest's only goal through Nam Tae-hee on 36 minutes.
Kuwait did come within inches of a leveler early in the second half after a powerful shot from midfielder Ali Al Maqseed that rattled the frame of the goal, but they were unable to find a breakthrough despite an open and end-to-end final half hour.
The 1-0 victory means Korea now progress to the second round of the tournament as a result of their superior head-to-head record over Kuwait and Oman, regardless of the outcome of their final match with Australia on Saturday.
However, Stielike was extremely pessimistic about his side's chances going forward.
"With a performance like today you cannot go far in this tournament," said the German.
"In a lot of phases in the game, Kuwait was the better team. And the result I think is very, very lucky today.
"I saw two good things today. One, we have six points after two games, the second thing is that we are no longer in the role of favourites for this competition."
For Stielike there are now more pressing concerns as he hopes some of his lengthy sick list can return to fitness. Defender Kim Chang-soo and midfielder Lee Chung-yong picked up injuries against Oman in the opening match on Saturday and three other key players Son Heung-min, Koo Ja-cheol and Kim Jin-hyeon came down with fevers.
"We had only 14 fit players today. Not only with our injuries but two days ago Son Heung-min developed a fever. Yesterday I thought he would be able to play the game but this morning he stood up and we had to go to hospital with him," said Stielike.
"Maybe tomorrow more players will be sick. If you have fevers in a group you don't know who will affected next. As a result, this circumstance of the line-up today was not I wanted. But as you saw today there were a lot of problem with a new team trying to find themselves on the pitch. I did not expect we would have so many problems.
"Our main objective is now the recuperation of the players in these four days before the game against Australia. If we play the way we did today we have no chance against Australia."
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Posted By Blogger to SOCCER 24H on 1/14/2015 10:21:00 am