GUANGZHOU, Nov 15: Three-time champions South Korea dealt another blow to Chinese football with an impressive 3-0 win in the Asian Games last 16 on Monday.

After struggling into the knockout stages, China were no match for the cultured and talented Koreans.

South Korea had dominated the first half and could have gone in at the break at least three goals up.

They had taken the lead after 19 minutes when a swift break down the left forced the stretched Chinese defence to furiously back-pedal.

Cho Young-Cheol was left in plenty of space to gather the cross and slot the ball across to Kim Jung-Woo to score past Zhang Shichang in the China goal.

Zhang then saved well from Park Chu-Young and Kim Bo-Kyung to keep the deficit down to one goal at the interval.

But even Zhang was powerless to keep out the second goal, scored by Monaco’s Park Chu-Young with a curling free-kick around the defensive wall four minutes into the second half.

South Korea were now unstoppable and Kim Jung-Woo scored his second of the night after 57 minutes when he nipped between two defenders to slot home Ji Dong-Won’s smart pass.

China searched for a way back in but both Wang Xuanhong and Li Kai seeing efforts going wide.

The defeat comes at the worst possible time for China whose national team failed to qualify for the World Cup and whose under-23 team here had failed to win a single match before home fans at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The sport has also been cursed by a series of corruption scandals.

Meanwhile, four-time champions Iran beat a depleted Malaysia 3-1 to make the quarter-finals where they will face Oman who trounced Hong Kong 3-0.

The Iranians are seasoned Asiad campaigners, having won the competition in 1974, 1990, 1998 and 2002.

They used the experience to good effect against a Malaysian side making its first appearance in the second round since 1978. Malaysia came into the game in crisis after three players were sent off in their stormy 3-0 defeat to China in their final group game.

Karim Ansari Fard, Seyed Hosseini and Amir Sharafi scored for Iran.

Malaysia got a consolation penalty four minutes from time but it was too little too late.

Results (pre-quarter-finals):

Qatar 0              Uzbekistan 1 Iran 3                 Malaysia 1 Hong Kong 0    Oman 3 China 0               South Korea 3 —AFP