JAKARTA – Bahrain striker Ismail Abdullatif blew a massive hole in Korea Republic’s AFC Asian Cup hopes on Sunday evening when he scored the winner five minutes from time to leave the two-time champions’ quarter-final hopes in serious doubt after suffering a 2-1 defeat.

Abdullatif capitalised on slack defending from the Koreans to slam home his shot from just inside the penalty area, beating World Cup goalkeeper Lee Woon-jae low and to his left to give Milan Macala’s side the three points.

The win gave the Bahrainis their first points of the tournament after they lost their opening game to co-hosts Indonesia, who Korea must now beat in their final game on Wednesday to have any hope of progressing.

Bahrain, meanwhile, will meet Group D leaders Saudi Arabia in their final game and will need a win against their Gulf rivals to be sure of reaching the last eight.

However, Pim Verbeek’s side were fastest out of the blocks and within four minutes they had taken the lead thanks to the invention of Lee Chun-soo.

The former Numancia man’s free kick from the edge of the penalty area was blocked, but when the ball landed back at his feet he scooped it over the defence and into the path of Kim Do-heon, whose fine left-foot volley gave Abdulrahman Ahmed no chance in the Bahrain goal.

Kim’s goal took the early sting out of the game as the Koreans sought to control the tempo, and it was a tactic that largely paid off.

But with two minutes left in the half Bahrain were level as Abdulla Marzooqi pumped a free kick deep into the Korean penalty area and Salman Isa lashed a low, left foot shot to beat Lee Woon-jae at his near post.

Clearly affected by the equaliser, the Koreans came out at the start of the second half looking to regain the lead, going agonisingly close on several occasions.

Lee Dong-gook’s shot from outside the area flew just wide two minutes after the restart and seven minutes later he dragged another effort across the face of the goal.

But Korea’s best chances came in the 55th minute when Dong-gook saw his shot beat Ahmed only for defender Sayed Adnan Mohamed to block the goal-bound effort. The ball fell at the feet of Do-heon but his attempt was hacked away by Rashed Al Dosari.

With 15 minutes on the clock, Chun-soo was well placed to reclaim the lead for the Koreans when substitute Cho Jae-jin headed the ball into his path, but the Ulsan Hyundai man’s miss-kick caused Ahmed no problem.

However, as Korea pushed forward looking for the winner, the gaps started to appear in their defence and eventually Bahrain took advantage when substitute Talal Yusuf forced the ball through to Abdullatif and he made no mistake with a fine right-foot finish.