Sidka delight at quarter-final place

Iraq coach Wolfgang Sidka was more inclined to focus on his side’s Asian Cup knockout-stage qualification than the 1-0 win over North Korea.

The defending champions booked their place in the knockout stages of Asia’s premier national soccer tournament with a largely lacklustre victory on Wednesday and will now face Australia in the last eight.

But they will need a much-improved performance if they are to beat Asia’s top-ranked side, having been pushed all the way by North Korea.

Sidka, however, said after the game that he was just happy to be through to the next round.

“If they were allowed to attack, sure they would have been able to get back into it but we imposed ourselves on the match,” he said.

“We kept the ball, especially in the first half, we had a lot of ball possession so we didn’t allow them to create opportunities.”

“It was always our plan that we would have more ball possession and not let them play.”

“The most important thing is that we are now playing Australia in the quarter-final. I think we deserve this victory, we played very well, especially in the first half.”

“I was very satisfied with the way we played. In the last 20 minutes, North Korea did everything to try and get back into the match so we lost a little bit of possession and control of the match but not too much.”

“In the end, 1-0, I think we deserve it. We are happy and we are looking forward to the quarter-final.”

North Korea went behind after Kerrar Jasim scored the game’s only goal on 22 minutes, and coach Jo Tong-Sop believes the early strike dented his side’s confidence.

“We conceded the goal too early in the first half. This disrupted our tactics,” Jo said.

“In the second half we improved and tried to make chances to score goals but we lost the match 1-0.”

“This was the last match and we didn’t get a good result. I think for the players, they had psychological problems and so were unable to read the match.”

“Tactically they didn’t do so well especially when the other team played long and medium-range passes. We didn’t react too quickly when we conceded the goal.”