Celtic will continue to be without Hyeongyu Oh and Hyunjun Yang after their South Korean side were victorious in the Asian Cup at the Round of 16 stage this evening.
South Korea finished second in their group behind Bahrain to set up a knockout tie against Saudi Arabia tonight.
Despite being ahead of the Saudis by 33 places in the official FIFA rankings, Jurgen Klinsmann’s outfit initially struggled after a goal from Abdullah Hadi Radif gave Korea’s opponents a 1-0 advantage.
After significant attacking pressure in response, Guesung Cho scored a dramatic end-of-stoppage-time equaliser to take the match beyond 90 minutes at 1-1.
The tie then went to penalties after a goalless extra-time period with South Korea coming out on top by four to two.
Both Oh and Yang were unused substitutes across the 120 minutes but will get the chance to feature in the quarter-finals rather than return to Celtic ahead of a busy schedule of fixtures
Yang has been entirely unused by Klinsmann in the tournament, but Oh did get some minutes off the bench in group draws against Jordan and Malaysia.
The return of Oh, in particular, would have been a benefit to Brendan Rodgers right now. Celtic are lacking a deputy for Kyogo Furuhashi and need a rotational option to come off the bench for the Japanese star.
Celtic will find out the status of Reo Hatate and Daizen Maeda on Wednesday when Japan take on Bahrain in their own last-16 knockout fixture.
If Japan make a deep run, the Hatate and Maeda could be unavailable for another two weeks with the final not taking place until February 10th in Lusail.
Marco Tilio, meanwhile, will have an extended stay in Qatar after Australia made it through to the quarter-finals with a 4-0 win over Indonesia on Sunday.
South Korea play the Aussies at that stage of the tournament with the match taking place on Friday.
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