The two-time champions were ahead after just four minutes through Kim Do-heon but after Salman Isa levelled for Bahrain two minutes before the interval, Ismail Abdullatif struck an 85th-minute winner.

Korea must defeat co-host Indonesia by two clear goals and hope group leaders Saudi Arabia defeat Bahrain to have any chance of maintaining their Asian Cup challenge.

"The coach is always responsible for the result," Verbeek said. "I think we created more than enough chances to score goals and when you don't score goals there's pressure on the defence.

"I think we played a good game and if you play like this you will be a good team. I'm 100% convinced that we can win by two goals and then life becomes completely different.

"We can't wait on anything because we have only one point. There will be 85,000 people, both teams have to score to win the game so I think it will be very interesting."

Bahrain coach Milan Macala insisted his side's victory handed the 2004 Asian Cup semi-finalists a much need morale boost to set-up a must-win meeting with Gulf rivals Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.

"The win kept us alive," said Macala. "We will travel tomorrow (to Palembang) and we will have a very short period to prepare for our big opponents from the Gulf.

"The situation before the game was difficult as the players' morale was down and we went into the match looking for a draw or victory.

"We prepared the team with different tactics and different possible strategies that we would face. We knew that Korea would be playing with different methods; with one or two strikers and we gave exact instructions for the players so they knew what to do.

"We saw their first match against Saudi Arabia and we knew that they have changed six players from the first game. However, despite starting with six different players, their tactic and system remained the same."