The midfielder, a one-time target of Blackburn, scored a goal in each half to seal the three points before Faouzi Aaishi converted a late penalty for Bahrain.

And Cho was delighted with the performance of Koo, who was only drafted in as a last-minute replacement for injured Monaco forward Park Chu-young.

"Koo is a very skilful player and he plays in many positions," he said.

"He can play in the centre of midfield and on the flank and he can cover two different positions while Cha (Du-ri) also played a good game. I will definitely consider fielding the two of them to against Australia."

Despite the result, Cho feels there is still plenty of room for improvement if South Korea are to be considered serious contenders for the title.

"This is only the start of the tournament," added the 56-year-old.

"We won tonight because the 23 players of our side were united and all of them had a good performance. That is why we won tonight.

"As for the next game, we should be better and better and it's not only for the next game but for the whole tournament. "

Bahrain coach Salman Sharida conceded his side were simply outplayed by the Koreans.

"We have learnt our lessons after playing against a big team who played previously in the World Cup," he said.

"They deserved to win and we were not on our game. The players were not at their best collectively or individually, but we still have two matches and we hope to get better results."

Bahrain have also had more than their fair share of injuries with the experienced Mohammed Salmeen ruled out before the tournament with a broken leg before Salman Isa failed in his bid to be fit for the game.

"We don't have a leader in the team as several experienced players were injured and that's our problem at the moment," added Sharida.

"Our focus now will be to recover before the next matches and fix the mistakes we had made in this game."