“He was injured on October 24, the information we have says that he needs two or three weeks to recover, that’s why he’s not in the list,” said Bento. 

 

“We should wait a little bit more and we will see how his recovery goes, how he develops in the next days. We will receive more information about his injury and we will see what we will do at the end of the week. For now, he is not on the list due to the physical problem.”

Park Ji-su (pictured above) is among the options available to Bento to play alongside Kim Min-jae in central defence should Kim Young-gwon not recover in time for the games, which will see the Koreans face the UAE in Goyang on November 11 before facing Iraq five days later.

 

Bento has also called up Suwon Samsung Bluewings striker Kim Gun-hee as a replacement for Hwang Ui-jo, who is not available after he injured a hamstring playing for French side Bordeaux, but there is no place in the squad for midfielder Lee Kang-in.

“His performance has been good, but that doesn’t mean that the performance of his teammates is not good as well,” he said of the Real Mallorca midfielder. 

 

“What happened is, Kang-in has had a good performance but Jeong Woo-yeong has also, Lee Dong-gyeong also. Hwang In-beom and Lee Jae-sung as well, so they are in the same position. 

 

“We have a lot of options and sometimes we decide to call Kang-in and in other moments other players.”

The Koreans are currently second in Group A of the AFC Asian Qualifiers, two points behind the Islamic Republic of Iran after the nations shared a 1-1 draw in Tehran last month.

 

Bento’s team will take on a UAE side in need of a win to pull themselves back into contention for a place at next year’s FIFA World Cup Finals before facing an Iraqi side that has struggled under former Korea Republic coach Dick Advocaat.

“The first game will be a difficult game for us,” said Bento. “We are going to face a team that play really well, it’s a team that offensively they have very good principles. They are going to demand from us a lot in a defensive way. 

 

“One of the key points for this game is how we are going to perform in the defensive way. So we should be aware, we should be focused on our strategy and our way of playing and of course try to do everything we can in order to reach the three points. Then we will see how we are going to play the second one.”

 

Goalkeepers: Gu Sung-yun, Kim Seung-gyu, Song Bum-kuen, Jo Hyeon-woo

Defenders: Kang Sang-woo, Kwon Kyung-won, Kim Min-jae, Kim Jin-su, Kim Tae-hwan, Park Ji-su, Lee Yong, Jung Seung-hyun, Hong Chul

Midfielders: Paik Seung-ho, Son Heung-min, Song Min-kyu, Um Won-sang, Lee Dong-gyeong, Lee Jae-sung, Jung Woo-young, Jeong Woo-yeong, Hwang In-beom, Hwang Hee-chan

Forwards: Kim Gun-hee, Cho Gue-sung