Tasnim – South Korea national football team coach Paulo Bento is sure it will be a difficult match against Iran in the 2022 World Cup qualification but at the same time he said they can beat Iran without any doubt.
The Korean team is scheduled to host Iran on March 24 in Seoul, capital of South Korea. The Taeguk Warriors will play the UAE five days later in Dubai.
“We can reach the first position in the table, so that should be our goal.” said Bento. “I think that is a good challenge for us.
“We reached the most important goal, that was to be qualified, but our ambition should be more than that. If you have the possibility to get the first position we should try in the next two games.”
Both the Koreans and Iranians have already booked their places at the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 with Bento’s side in second place, two points behind a Team Melli squad led by Dragan Skocic.
The meeting with the Iranians renews a long-standing rivalry between the two nations, who last met in Tehran in October, when the game ended in a 1-1 draw.
“The opponent is strong in many, many aspects, in the physical aspect as well as in the tactical one,” said Bento. “It's a team that has players that can create imbalance in our team, players that have experience so I have no doubts what is their quality.
“It's a team that can play with two in front if (Sardar) Azmoun (is) on the list, when he was not on the list they played with just one in front, who was (Mehdi) Taremi, so it's a team that lost just two points in this phase of the qualifiers so it will be a difficult game for us for sure.
“I'm sure it will be a difficult game but at the same time I am convinced that we can do that and we are going to try to do that without any doubt,” the Portuguese concluded.