Son Heung-min scored a landmark 50th goal for his country to move South Korea a step closer to the World Cup on Thursday as Australia and Saudi Arabia cancelled each other out.
Spurs and South Korean skipper Son missed last month’s qualifiers with injury but celebrated his return with a first-half penalty in a 3-1 win at Kuwait.
Victory left South Korea comfortably top of Group B with four wins and a draw after five matches and on course for the 2026 World Cup in North America.
The top two teams in each of the three Asian qualifying groups will reach the showpiece in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
South Korea took a 10th-minute lead in Kuwait when striker Oh Se-hun rose highest to powerfully head home. Nine minutes later it was 2-0 to the visitors after Son — playing in his 130th game for South Korea — won the penalty and then converted it with minimum fuss.
Mohammad Daham struck on the hour to halve the deficit, only for substitute Bae Jun-ho, who had replaced Son, to make the game safe with South Korea’s third 14 minutes later.
Jordan and Iraq remain second and third, respectively, in Group B following a goalless draw in Basra, while Oman moved to within two points of the automatic qualification spots with a 1-0 home win against Palestine.
In Group C, Saudi Arabia had a goal disallowed in added time in a 0-0 draw against Australia in Melbourne that did neither side any favours in their bids to qualify.
In his first game back in charge following the sacking of Roberto Mancini, Herve Renard thought his visitors had snatched a late winner when Sultan Al Ghannam fired home in the 93rd minute.
But the flag went up with one of his Saudi teammates offside.
“We had some good opportunities, but we have to go give our opponent credit. First half we didn’t play very well,” said Australia coach Tony Popovic.
“We were not very good with the ball while they were sharp and energetic. We improved significantly in the second half, which is good.”
It left Australia and Saudi Arabia level on six points in their scrap for second place in the group.
China joined them with the same number of points after scoring in the 91st-minute for a crucial 1-0 win in Bahrain. Zhang Yuning prodded home just minutes after Bahrain had what they thought was a winner of their own ruled out by VAR for offside.
Japan can extend their lead at the top of Group C when they meet Indonesia in Jakarta on Friday.
Ten-man Iran hold on
Elsewhere, Iran survived a fightback from North Korea to win 3-2 and cement their spot at the top of Group A with 13 points from a maximum 15 – two ahead of second-placed Uzbekistan.
Mohammad Mohebi scored twice and Mehdi Ghayedi also netted in the first half in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, but North Korea fought back after Iran had Shojae Khalilzadeh sent off shortly after half-time.
The Koreans are rooted to the bottom of their six-team group and yet to taste victory in the third qualifying stage. Teams finishing third and fourth in their groups go into a further phase of qualifying.
Uzbekistan remain second in Group A but saw the gap to third halved in dramatic fashion with a 3-2 defeat to Qatar in Doha.
The visitors had rebounded from Almoez Ali’s first-half double through a quick-fire brace from Abbosbek Fayzullaev late on, however defender Lucas Mendes scored in the 12th minute of injury time to breathe life back into the Asian champions’ campaign.
The 2022 hosts stay fourth and level on points with third-placed UAE, who defeated Kyrgyzstan 3-0 in Abu Dhabi. Intriguingly, the two teams meet in the Emirates on Tuesday, while Uzbekistan travel to North Korea, and Iran to Kyrgyzstan.
