Bangladesh up against mighty South Korea
Bangladesh will begin their AFC U-19 Women's Championship Qualifiers campaign today when they take on two-time champions South Korea in Group D opener at the Republican Central Stadium in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
The match will get underway at 3:00pm (BST) before hosts Tajikistan and Chinese Taipei lock horns in the day's second match.
The girls in red and green went to the Central Asian nation following a triumphant campaign in the inaugural SAFF U-18 Women's Championship, but the AFC tournament is expected to offer a lot more competition than the SAFF tournament.
Moreover, South Korea played the AFC U-19 Women's Championship final three times in nine editions and clinched the title twice in 2013 and 2004. They, however, had a poor outing last time when they finished third among four teams in the group stage with defeats to eventual champions Japan and Australia.
Although Bangladesh are not dreaming of a victory over the South Koreans, they promised to put up a good show as the togetherness for nearly two years is inspiring them to judge their level against South Korea, against whom they suffered a 6-0 defeat in a friendly at the under-16 level.
“All the teams in the group are good. We have come here with a good preparation of last 12 months. The girls won the SAFF U-18 Women's Championship in Bhutan earlier this month and there have been some under-15 players, who have recently played in the SAFF U-15 Championship and the AFC U-16 Championship Qualifiers. So the girls are confident about playing in the final round of the AFC U-19 Women's Championship,” head coach Golam Rabbani Choton was quoted as saying at a pre-tournament conference in Tajikistan by a BFF press release.
Bangladesh have targeted to finish as group runners-up and squeeze into the next round as one of two best runners-up from six groups, and the team will certainly hope to keep the margin of defeat to as low as possible.
South Korea coach Hut Jung Jae claimed they had little idea about Bangladesh, but was optimistic of a good show.
“We have prepared intensively to win all matches. Bangladesh are a good team and it will be a good match between two sides though we have little idea about our opponents,” said Jae.
Bangladesh participated in the AFC U-19 Women's Championship for the first time in 2012 and lost both group-stage matches against India and Uzbekistan before skipping the next two editions due to a shortage of players.
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