China's head coach Marcello Lippi celebrates with his son after the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia qualification match between China and South Korea in Changsha, Central China's Hunan province, March 23, 2017. China won 1-0. [Photo/VCG]

China took the lead after 34 minutes when Wang's inward curving corner found Yu at the near post, where the Beijing Guo'an striker glanced a precise header into the bottom-right corner.

"Yu's goal from Wang's corner was what we trained lots of times in the past week," said Lippi.

"Due to the injury and fatigue of several key players, we couldn't field our best lineup onto the pitch. It was not our best form. We can do better in the next match," he added.

For South Korea, this was a bitter loss to swallow considering.

"I'm responsible for it. I feel regretted for our fans and journalists following us that we failed to bring at least one point home," said German head coach Uli Stielike.

"We did expect from the first minute that China will play aggressively. We have little ball possession in the first 20 minutes. From then on we took control but just at that time China scored, which changed the momentum of the match.