Perfect opportunity for DPR Korea picking Nigeria
13/9/2007 17:00
"Mysterious Troop" DPR Korea will come to their best opportunity when
facing Nigeria on Friday in their second Group B match of World Cup, after the
top Asian team had lived up to their hype against world No. 1 the United States
while Nigeria performed lackluster againstSweden.
The DPR Koreans, twice
former winners of the women's soccer
Asian Cup, served notice to the rest of
the teams in the 2007 tournament with a fierce fought 2-2 draw on Tuesday,
forcing the top-ranked US just to pull through with a 69-minute equalizer from
Heather O'Reilly.
Nigeria, however, failed to show the quality of five-time
African champions in a scramble tie with world No. 3 Sweden, scraping 1-1
with a late goal from Cynthia Uwak
After the first round games of Group B on
Tuesday, the Group B standings are wide open with all four teams on one point,
with DPR Korea and the US just leading with goal differential.
A victory from
the Nigeria game will send the DPR Koreans
temporarily on top, while a
tougher encounter pits the US and Sweden to start three hours earlier on
Friday.
In their previous matches against Nigeria, DPR Korea won 3-0 in the
2003 World Cup on the U.S. soil where the Africans came out the biggest
disappointment of the tournament's first round, losing all three matches and
failing to score a single goal.
And the DPR Koreans' 1-2 defeat to Nigeria
went back to their only other meet at the 1999 World Cup, also in the US eight
years ago, when most of the players in the current DPR Korea team were primary
schoolgirls.
Contrary to the less organized Nigeria, the DPR Koreans played
nice teamwork in Tuesday's first game and were not short of outstanding
individual, especially when chances came on the US team's defending
mistakes.
The draw also boosted the confidence of the DPR Koreans, as
coach Kim Kwang Min made it public that they eye on winning the
tournament.
"We are starting to fire on all cylinders, and learned how to
play the US Maybe next match we could play better," he said after Tuesday's
game.
"Our target has never changed. That's to vie for the World Cup title,"
he added.
Xinhua
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