Football
Michael Church, Asia correspondent 7y

China's Marcello Lippi warns against complacency following historic win

Marcello Lippi says China should not allow their historic World Cup qualifying victory over South Korea on Thursday evening to make them complacent.

China notched their first win over South Korea in seven years and only their second ever thanks to a solitary goal by Beijing Guoan striker Yu Dabao that keeps alive the country's slim hopes of qualifying for Russia 2018.

"I hope my team don't get too self-satisfied with this," Lippi, a World Cup winner with Italy in 2006, said. "I hope they can have even better achievements.

"Actually the last match against Qatar was better than today. Today we have done well at the defensive end. Now I hope we can improve our attacking."

Yu gave the Chinese the lead with glancing header 11 minutes from the end of the first half before an impressive showing by goalkeeper Zeng Cheng kept South Korea at bay as the Guangzhou Evergrande goalkeeper twice denied Ki Sung-yeung and also saved from Ji Dong-won.

The win -- China's first in the current phase of qualifying -- moves Lippi's team on to five points from six games and puts them within striking distance of the top three following Uzbekistan's loss at the hands of Syria.

The top two teams in the group -- currently Iran and South Korea -- will qualify automatically for Russia while the team in third goes into a series of playoffs.

"This match was crucially important to us," Lippi said. "A draw had no meaning to us, we had to win and we made it, but we have lots to improve.

"We have kept our World Cup qualifying hopes alive. If we had drawn or lost, we would have had no chance.

"Now we have reduced the gap to the second ranked team from seven points to five points, but we need to win more matches to be able to play in the World Cup."

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