WUHAN - DPR Korea coach Choe Kwan-sok conceded his new-look team may not be able to live up to expectations and defend their AFC U-19 Women's Championship title in Wuhan.
The last three years has proved a highly-successful period for DPR Korea in women's football, lifting the Under-20 World Cup in Russia in 2006 and the Under-17 World Cup in New Zealand in 2008, while the senior team also claimed the AFC Women's Asian Cup the same year in Ho Chi Minh City.
They narrowly failed to defend their Under-20 World Cup title in Chile last year as they lost out to the USA in a repeat of the 2006 final but come into the fifth edition of the AFC U-19 Women's Championship as holders having edged out Japan in Chongqing two years ago.
DPR Korea's impressive recent record therefore makes them natural favourites to leave Hubei with the trophy but Choe (pictured) feels that may be a tough task given the changes to his squad.
“As defending champions, we tried our best to prepare for this championship but as far as our team members go, we have some new faces so perhaps we haven't got as much expectation about our players,” he said.
“But we will try our best.”
DPR Korea, who will be bidding to become the first country to successfully defend the AFC U-19 Women's championship, begin their Group A assault on Sunday against Thailand.
Thai coach Thunya Phovijittra is confident his charges can acquit themselves well but admitted his team will be forced to absorb plenty of pressure against DPR Korea.
“I think it is a game where we will have to focus on defence and use the counter-attack,” he said.
I think we are a good team just now, physically and mentally we are okay and we are playing well.”
The group's other game sees Korea Republic face Vietnam with the former coming into the tournament boosted by a friendly victory over Australia on Monday.
The Koreans easily beat the Vietnamese 6-0 in qualifying last November but boss Choi In-cheul expects a stiffer test this time around, although he stressed the need for his side to get off to a good start.
“We were in the same group for the qualifying round so we know them but they have improved,” he said.
“The first game is always important and it's good to start with a win.”
Choi also underlined he was not placing too much emphasis on their final group game against their northern neighbours, instead focusing on ensuring they picked up maximum points from their first two encounters.
“Frankly speaking, Thailand and Vietnam are not as good as DPR Korea so first of all we need to win the first and second matches and then see what happens against DPR Korea,” he added.
“We don't know much about the DPR Korea team, they are unveiled for the first time here so we will watch them in first and second matches to get an idea of how good they are.”
http://origin.the-afc.com/en/component/content/article/24970-choe-wary-of-great-expectations
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