SEOUL-- With his team having been held scoreless by Iraq last week in a World Cup qualifying match, South Korea head coach Paulo Bento said Monday he'd like to see "more aggressiveness" from his offense in their next game against Lebanon.

South Korea played Iraq to a 0-0 draw to open the final Asian qualifying round for the 2022 FIFA World Cup last Thursday. South Korea, ranked 36th, will next face the 98th-ranked Lebanon on Tuesday. The kickoff is 8 p.m. at Suwon World Cup Stadium in Suwon, 45 kilometers south of Seoul.

South Korea outshot Iraq 15-2 but had nothing to show for it. And Bento has been under pressure to make sweeping changes to his formation and juggle his lineup.

But the coach said Monday he won't shake things up only for the sake of doing so, and it's more important for players to play better within the current structure.

"It's not so important to change a lot of players or tactical system to improve our way of play. But of course, we need to do different things than we did in the previous game," Bento said at an online press conference from the National Football Center in Paju, Gyeonggi Province. "Offensively, we should play with more aggressiveness. We should play faster. But at the same time, we should be calm from the beginning of the game in order to play as we'd like to play."

Lebanon recently went through a coaching change, hiring former Czech midfielder Ivan Hasek in July. South Korea and Lebanon were also in the same group in the previous round in June, and Bento said the Lebanese are capable of switching their systems during a match and he expects them to play tight defense.

"They're a team with a good defensive organization that sometimes tries to press a little bit higher," Bento said. "So we should make our offensive process well if we want to create more chances to score than we did in the previous game."

There are two groups of six in the final round. The top two countries from each group will qualify for the World Cup in Qatar. The two No. 3 seeds will square off in a playoff match, with the winner then moving on to the last-chance intercontinental playoff match.

South Korea have played at every World Cup since 1986.

Source: Yonhap News Agency