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S. Korea arrives in Canberra for first Asian Cup match

January 6, 2015

SYDNEY (Yonhap) — The South Korean men’s national football team on Tuesday moved from Sydney to Canberra, the site of its first two matches of the upcoming AFC Asian Cup.

Coached by Uli Stielike, the 23-man team will be trying to win South Korea’s first Asian Cup title since 1960.

The country has been paired with Australia, Oman and Kuwait in Group A. The first match for South Korea will be against Oman at the 25,000-seat Canberra Stadium on Saturday.

South Korea, ranked 69th in the world, will stay in Canberra to face Kuwait next Tuesday. The Group A finale will be against Australia in Brisbane on Jan. 17 at Brisbane Stadium, with 52,500 seats.

The continent’s largest football competition will feature 16 nations divided into four groups, and the top two nations from each group will reach the quarterfinals.

In its final warm-up match Sunday, South Korea blanked Saudi Arabia 2-0 in Sydney. Stielike said the first half was “the worst 45 minutes” South Korea played in the five matches he’s coached since October, but that he was satisfied that the players turned things around in the second half.

Stielike also said he was encouraged by the way the team competed without key veterans: defender Cha Du-ri sat out with a knee injury, while midfield stalwarts Lee Chung-yong and Ki Sung-yueng were unavailable after joining the national team at the last minute following their club matches in England.

Cha, the oldest member of the team at 34, is still nursing a sore knee that has kept him off the field since last week. Team officials say the injury isn’t considered serious and that there have been no talks of replacing Cha before the first match.

Goalkeeper Jung Sung-ryong had missed a few days of practice with a sore leg but returned to action Monday.