South Korea did just enough to overcome Kuwait in their second game of the Asian Cup.

Nam Tae-hee scored a first-half winner as Taeguk Warriors boss Uli Stielike made seven changes from his line-up for their opening day victory over Oman.

"There was no objective behind the changes, it was circumstance," Stielike said.

"We had three injured players from the Oman match. One has finished the tournament and the other two couldn't recover in time. In the last two days we've had a big, big problem with fever in the team. Today we had eight players on the bench but really just four players without problems."

The final 30 minutes was end-to-end with both sides having good chances, and the Koreans looking vulnerable at the back.

Stielike added: "In a lot of phases in the game, Kuwait were the better team.

"They had more of the ball, more moves. I consider the result very, very lucky today. I didn't expect that we would have so many problems."