Far East Asian football giants Korea Republic and China PR will begin their campaign in the third round of the 2018 FIFA World Cup AFC qualifying tournament against each other at the Seoul World Cup Stadium in the capital city of South Korea on Thursday, Sep. 1.

South Korea advanced in the third round after topping Group G during the second round of the qualifiers with 24 points in eight games. Their closest pursuer in the bracket was Lebanon, who only scored 11 points and did not qualify as one of the second-placed teams.

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The Taegeuk Warriors did not play their last game of the group stage with Kuwait after the latter's football governing body was suspended and fined by FIFA from all competitions since October of last year because of defiance to regulations, as per ESPN.

South Korea was automatically awarded a 3-0 win because of it, which actually did not matter since the team is a long way ahead of their competitors in the group.

Head coach Uli Stielike's last competitive match in the tournament was against Lebanon on Mar. 24, which resulted in a 1-0 win at the Ansan Wa~ Stadium in Ansan, South Korea.

Meanwhile, China barely qualified to the third round of competitions as they earned the fourth and final runner-up team berth after finishing the group stage with 17 points in Group C.

Team Dragon's most recent qualifying match was a 2-0 win over powerhouse Qatar at the Shaanxi Province Stadium in Xi'an, China on Mar. 29, via Xinhuanet.

Guangzhou Evergrande midfielder Huang Bowen and Shanghai SIPG winger Wu Lei netted the goals at the 57th and 88th minutes for head coach Gao Hongbo's side.

South Korea and China are included in Group A of the third round, together with Iran, Uzbekistan, Qatar, and Syria. Group B includes Australia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, and Thailand.

The top two teams from each group after the double round-robin competitions will qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

The predicted result is a close 2-1 win for South Korea.

South Korea starting lineup (4-2-3-1 formation): Jung S.R.; Lee Y., Kim Y.G., Kim K.H., Jang H.S.; Jung W.Y., Hong J.H.; Ji D.W., Ki S.Y., Son H.M.; Hwang H.C.

China starting lineup (4-2-3-1 formation): Zeng; Feng, Zhao, Ren, Li; Zhang L.P., Hao; Huang, Zhang X.Z., Wu; Gao

TagsFootball, 2018 AFC World Cup qualifying tournament, AFC 2018 World Cup qualifers, South Korea, china