SEOUL: South Korea head coach Uli Stielike has backed his team to beat China in Thursday's World Cup qualifier and inch closer to their ninth consecutive finals appearance despite the team's inadequate preparation. South Korean players have had only three days of training together ahead of their Group A tie of the final Asian qualifying round at the Seoul World Cup Stadium. 'If you are a world-class player, you need to know how to overcome difficult conditions despite the short preparation time,' Stielike was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency on Wednesday. 'I think our players have shown this and we've always gathered our players three days ahead of the match, so they should play well.' South Korea have lost only once to China, at the East Asian Football Cup in 2010, but Stielike is taking nothing for granted. 'Football is not a sport where the numbers speak all. What's important is who is going to show a better performance on the pitch,' the German added. 'The (head-to-head) record will stimulate Chinese players. It's important how they will play, but whether we can execute our match plan and believe in ourselves is more so.' Captain Ki Sung-yueng also warned against lowering the guard against the Chinese. 'I think China are preparing for this match even more thoroughly compared to what they did at the East Asian Football Cup,' the Swansea City midfielder said. 'If our players just put their guards down, we could get a bad result. We will give our utmost effort to collect a victory.' Iran, Uzbekistan, Qatar and Syria are the other teams in the group with the top two finishers advancing to the finals in Russia, while the third-place side has a chance of progressing via two playoff rounds.