South Korea: Shin Tae-yong made players swap shirts to confuse opposition

Monday's match between the two sides could be pivotal for their progress in a hard group also featuring world champions Germany and Mexico.

The Swedes have been trying to get the upper hand against South Korea using tactics which might be considered underhand.

In his press conference, Swedish coach Janne Andersson was forced to apologise after it was claimed one of his scouts had been caught spying on Monday's opponents at a closed training session in Austria.

"We do it because European teams are watching us". If someone could interpret it in another way we regret it.

"It's been made a mountain out of a molehill".

Asked about claims that Sweden had spied on his team, Shin Tae-yong was calm, saying: "I don't think that's bad", adding that all teams needed to know about their opponents.

South Korea's World Cup team responded to a Swedish spy for Sweden's team by swapping their jerseys so it would be harder to tell them apart.

Always prepared, South Korea masterfully intercepted the spying by swapping players' numbers because in team manager, Shin Tae-yong's words "it's very hard for westerners to distinguish between Asians." .

"They might know a few of our players but it is very hard for Westerners to distinguish between Asians and that's why we did that", Shin said.

Tae-yong continued: "All coaches probably feel their opponents are always spying on them".

South Korea will be hoping to massively improve on their 2014 World Cup experience, in which they managed to take just one point in the group stage. With Sweden's match due to kick off at 14:00 Swedish time today, it is too late to organize alternative transport, and the supporters will have to watch it at home instead.

As it turns out only Son Heung-min, who's also the forward for the Tottenham Football Club, and South Korean captain Ki Sung-yueng were the only players to wear their own shirts during the training session.