Hiddink watches his team beat Spain (Allsport).

By David Anderson, PA Sport, Gwangju

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At the start, they just wanted to record their first World Cup win. Then they wanted to reach the last 16. Once they had done that, they enviously eyed a place in the quarter-finals. Now South Korea are in the semi-finals and coach Guus Hiddink is being asked can they win the World Cup?

Three weeks ago such a question would have been laughed off as pure fantasy - but Poland, Portugal, Italy and now Spain certainly aren't laughing after falling victim to Korea during their history-making run.

Hiddink is reluctant to talk about Korea's chances of actually winning the tournament and he adroitly replied: "If you don't mind, first of all I'd like to have a little glass of champagne and celebrate a bit.

"What comes tomorrow is tomorrow, not now."

Hiddink had certainly earned his tipple and not since biblical times has one man performed so many miracles in such a short space of time.

At the start of the year, Korea were in real danger of becoming the laughing stocks of the World Cup.

Defeat followed defeat and the co-hosts feared an embarrassing first-round exit.

But over the last four months, Hiddink has transformed the side into the finest Asia has ever produced.

To the immense pride of South Koreans, they have become the first Asian side to reach the World Cup semi-finals.

No other team at the World Cup can match their team spirit and, above all, stamina.

They also have the quality that Napoleon liked in all his generals - they are lucky.

This was evident in their second-round win over Italy, while they got every decision going in their quarter-final against Spain.

The marginal offsides wrongly went against Jose Antonio Camacho's side, but what really infuriated the Spanish was having two goals disallowed.

Kim Tae-young knocked the ball into his own net from a free-kick on 49 minutes only for the effort to be ruled out for a supposed foul on the Korean.

Then in the second minute of extra-time, the assistant referee wrongly flagged that the ball had gone out of play as Joaquin crossed for Fernando Morientes to head home.

To be fair, as Hiddink pointed out, his players stopped as soon as they heard the referee blow and before Morientes scored, but Spain are right to feel aggrieved over the first disallowed effort.

Instead, the Spaniards had to endure their second penalty shoot-out in seven days and after Lee Woon-jae saved Joaquin's spot-kick, skipper Hong Myung-bo scored the winning penalty to spark yet another nationwide celebration.

Next up for Korea are Germany in Tuesday's semi-final in Seoul and in between sips of champagne, Hiddink was already plotting their downfall.

His first tactic has been to indulge in a spot of mind games and he talked up Germany, while listing his side's supposed disadvantages.

Like he did before beating Spain, he highlighted his opponents' extra recovery time, claiming this was an important advantage.

"Like Spain, the Germans have an advantage in that they have one more day's rest," he said.

"You could see against Spain that my players were not moving as freely as they were in previous matches.

"Now we have one day less than Germany and the schedule is not in our favour.

"That's why it's a big, big compliment for this team that they have done what they've done.

"I've watched Germany and they only need one or two chances to win the match.

"That for me is the difference between them and the other teams.

"We will approach the next game against Germany with the attitude that we have nothing to lose."

After all, all Korea ever wanted from the World Cup was to win a match.