Metsu confident of bouncing back

The home side dominated the match but struggled to break down the resolute Korean defence before an own goal by Basheer Saeed and a superb strike by substitute An Chol-hyok gave the visitors a two-goal lead.

Saeed made amends by scoring with a deflected shot in the 85th minute but it was not enough to prevent Metsu’s side from slipping to an opening defeat.

"I'm very disappointed because we created several chances and could have scored on more than two occasions, but we just couldn't score. It could have made all the difference when Korea was defending for an entire half,” the Frenchman said.

"These things happen in football and this is not the end of all. We still have seven matches and everything is possible.

“We can still go on and win our next match with Saudi Arabia and win the return match in Korea. So we are not out of the race yet.

"I am disappointed because we couldn't start with a win when we could have. Korea was defending all the time. When we couldn't score, the pressure kept building. There wasn't a fitness problem to last the 90 minutes but Korea defended well, and they have been good at it.

"We must not take away the sheen from Korea's win. They came with a plan and succeeded. Our mistake was we couldn't score."

DPR Korea coach Kim Jong Hun was naturally delighted to see his side pick up an invaluable three points on the road.

"We played to a plan and it was to last the distance in the sapping weather conditions,” he explained.

"In order to do that, we had to slow down the game. We made a few mistakes but fortunately for us, the UAE couldn't capitalise. We started to open in the second half because we thought the UAE players were beginning to tire.

"Obviously we are happy with the result. We would have been happy with one point but to return with full points was really, really good. We still have a long way to go but it's a good start."