South Korea head coach Cho Kwag-rae has expressed his disappointment after watching his side’s shock defeat to Lebanon on Tuesday.

Lebanon, which suffered a humiliating 6-0 defeat against Korea in September, stunned the Taegeuk Warriors by defeating the visitors 2-1 at Sports City Stadium in Beirut.

It was their first defeat in five games in the third round of the Asian qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup. Cho blamed the defeat on the lack of first-team players including striker Park Chu-young of Arsenal and midfielder Ki Sung-yueng of Celtic.

“I found there was a wide gap between our starting players and backups,” he admitted after the game.

The team’s top scorer Park, who scored six goals in the past four games, missed Tuesday’s game because of suspension, while center-midfielder Ki was sidelined with fatigue.

Lee Keun-ho started the game as the lone striker to fill the void left by Park, with young striker Son Heung-min supporting him from behind.

Cho also deployed newcomer Lee Seung-ki and Seo Jung-jin from the K-League in place of Ki and the injured Lee Chung-young in the middle of the field, but they lacked the offensive prowess to break Lebanon’s defensive wall.

Needing just one more victory to book a berth in the final qualification round, Korea went all out to win against the Middle Eastern side.

But Lebanon took an early lead after Ali Al Saadi found a lose ball inside the box and kicked it into the net just four minutes into the game.

Koo Ja-cheol leveled from the penalty spot in the 20th minute, but he pulled down Mahmoud El Ali to concede a penalty and Abas Atwi scored the winning goal in the 31st minute to bring the team level on points with Korea at the top of Group B.

Meanwhile, Kuwait came from a goal down to defeat the UAE 2-1 to stay in the running for a place in the next phase of qualification.

With just one more game remaining, Korea sits on top of Group B, above Lebanon on goal difference, while Kuwait closely trails the two with eight points. Korea’s final game is against Kuwait at home in February.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)