Yemen defeated by North KoreaWorld Cup 2006 dreams vanish [Archives:2004/783/Sports]

By Adel Al-Khawlani
Yemen Times Staff
Last wek, the national football team suffered a 2-1 loss in its fifth game against North Korea in the first round of the Asian group 5 qualifiers for the World Cup 2006 in Germany.
In the twelfth minute of the first half, the Koreans scored the first goal and doubled the result in minute 19 of the second half. Yemen scored only one goal in minute 30 of the same half through the substitute Fathi Jaber.
Despite the hard circumstances, heavy rains and strong storms in the match, the Yemeni footballers performed well. Their tactical level was to some extent convincing though they endured during their travel from china to North Korea capital which took longer than 4 days.
The team members did not reach the required preparation due to their short time training.
The first half saw a Korean dominance over the course of the play, especially after the surprise goal in the first few minutes. The opponents played in an offensive manner through their side players, especially the right side one Mon who supplied forward strikers with several horizontal balls to yield the first goal by the head of advancing Ianbic.
He exploited the defense gap among Yemeni players to hamper the numerous offensives raged by the opponent. The players organized their queues and started to attack but couldn't pass through the Korean hurdles, tightly closing the area that in turn made the Yemeni strikers Ali Al-Nono, Al-Kuhali, and Rudhwan Abduljabbar shoot from a further distance going in awry.
The goalkeeper Mu'ath Abdul-Khaliq saved his net from several fast re-offensives by the Koreans.
After recurrent attempts, the successful attacker,Fathi Jaber could cross the Korean fence and scored for Yemen in minute 30 of the second half by placing a crawling ball to the right of the Korean goalkeeper.
Heavy rains and bad weather are not only the reasons behind the defeat but there are others including:
* weakness of defense organization; playing on the same line facilitated the task of the opponent.
* the absence of a reactive answer to the early Korean surprise goal.
* the center line of the players neither showed control nor prevented some attacks of the opponent, although the plan adopted indicates concentration of center players.
* lack of coordination between defense and forward players.
* the long distance between main striker Ali Al-Nono and the sideliners Nasser Ghazi and Rudhwan Abduljabbar posed no threat to the Korean goalkeeper.

Thailand's win over UAE ensured Korea's qualification
Another play in the same group staged on the same day in Bangkok combined Thailand with UAE.
The former downed the latter 3-0 to guarantee the North Korea's qualification for the World Cup 2006 from among group members. Korea, which has 11 points followed by the UAE with its credit remaining at 7, Thailand with 6 and Yemen with a 4-point credit, will have an incontestable play against UAE in the away encounter.
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