South Korea’s Son Heung-min aims to crush the UAE’s slender World Cup hopes

There is good and bad news for the UAE ahead of their final, must-win World Cup qualifier against South Korea in Dubai on Tuesday.

The visitors have already booked a place at their 10th successive World Cup tournament — but that does not mean they have traveled to the Gulf simply to bask in the welcome sunshine.

As captain Son Heung-min and coach Paulo Bento made clear, Asia’s most successful World Cup team want to end their campaign with a victory and top spot in Group A.

With one game remaining, Korea lead the group on 23 points, one ahead of second-placed Iran. The UAE are a distant third with 9 points, closely followed by Iraq on 8 points. While any hope of the hosts claiming one of the two automatic qualification spots is long gone, victory at the Al-Maktoum Stadium would guarantee the UAE a play-off spot against Australia in June. The winner of that clash would then take on South American opposition for a place at the finals in Qatar.

In truth the Whites, who are looking to return to the World Cup stage for the first time since their debut at the finals in 1990, should have already secured that play-off spot. All they had to do last Thursday, in their first game under new coach Rodolfo Arruabarrena, was avoid defeat by Iraq. Instead they lost 1-0.

It means that if Iraq defeat bottom-of-the-table Syria in their match on Tuesday, also in Dubai, the UAE will have to become the first team to defeat Korea during this qualification campaign. Not only that, the 2002 semi-finalists have conceded only two goals in 15 games on the road to Qatar and so arrived in Dubai on Saturday full of confidence.

Son, South Korea’s star forward who plays club football for Tottenham Hotspur in the English Premier League, scored his