

Posted by

Emily Dulhanty ,

August 12, 2014 Email

Emily Dulhanty

On Twitter:

@emidul

Canada plays Korea DPR tonight in their final group game of the under 20 women’s World Cup at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. Losing their first game to Ghana has put Canada in a tough situation, and they likely need a win against the strong North Koreans to advance to the knockout round of the tournament.



Looking at Korea DPR



Korea DPR currently hold the top spot in Group A. As a nation, they have a strong record in FIFA youth tournaments: they won the under 20 title in Russia in 2006 and were second at the under 20 tournament in 2008 in Chile. At the under 17 level, Korea DPR won the 2008 tournament in New Zealand and were second in 2012 in Azerbaijan. Many of the players from the under 17 squad in 2012 are on Korea DPR’s squad for this tournament, including Ri Un-Sim, the Golden Shoe winner in Azerbaijan. She currently has two of the team’s five goals at Canada 2014.



Canada and Korea DPR have some history at FIFA youth tournaments. In 2012, Korea DPR beat Canada 2-1 in both the under 20 and under 17 women’s World Cups, knocking Canada out of both tournaments. Most recently, Canada and Korea DPR drew 1-1 in the group stage of the 2014 under 17 WWC in Costa Rica this past March.



The 2015 WWC will be the first senior World Cup Korea DPR will miss since the 1995 edition in Sweden, as their team was banned after several players tested positive for performance enhancing drugs at the 2011 WWC in Germany.



Questions around Canada’s starting eleven remain



Before Canada’s second group game against Finland, it was clear that Canada’s coach Andrew Olivieri had some decisions to make regarding his team’s starting eleven. Mixing things up from the team’s first group game against Ghana, Olivieri started Nichelle Prince and Ashley Campbell, and removed Janine Beckie and Valerie Sanderson from the starting eleven. But when Beckie and Sanderson were substituted into Friday’s game at half-time, both scored in the first five minutes of the half, starting Canada’s exhilarating comeback. We will have to wait and see if Olivieri changes things up again.



Ahead of the match, Olivieri told FIFA.com, “North Korea have a lot of quality; they're the third-best team in the world in terms of [women's] youth programmes. There have been some good moments from us and we've improved as our games have gone on, but we need to start better in this one. We're going to need 90 minutes of quality football to get a result."



Group scenarios



The current group standings are below:



Teams W D L Points GF GA +/- Korea DPR 2 0 0 6 5 1 4 Canada 1 0 1 3 3 3 0 Ghana 1 0 1 3 1 3 -2 Finland 0 0 2 0 3 5 -2

A win vs Korea DPR = Canada finishes with 6 points



Canada would advance... if Finland beats Ghana OR if the Finland-Ghana match ends in a draw OR if Ghana beats Finland but Canada has a better goal differential than Ghana and/or Korea DPR.



A draw vs Korea DPR = Canada finishes with 4 points



Canada would advance... if Finland beats Ghana OR if the Finland-Ghana match ends in a draw (because Canada would still have better goal differential than Ghana).



A loss vs Korea DPR = Canada finishes with 3 points



Canada would advance... if Finland beats Ghana and Canada has a better goal differential than both Finland and Ghana.



*If points and goal differential are equal, the next tiebreaker is number of goals scored in all group matches. Subsequent tiebreakers can be found in the FIFA regulations document.



