May 20 – North Korea, absent from international football as the country clamped its borders shut at the start of the pandemic, is rapidly re-emerging in the women’s game as a force to be reckoned with.
On Sunday night at the Kapten I Wayan Dipta Stadium in Bali, the North Korean U17 women beat Japan 1-0 in the final of the AFC U17 Women’s Asian Cup Indonesia 2024.
The win, North Korea’s fourth in the nine editions of this age group competition, will see them go through to the U17 Women’s World Cup Dominican Republic 2024, to be played October 16 to November 3.
Japan also qualified for U17 as well as third-place finishers South Korea, who beat China 2-1 in the third-place playoff.
Earlier this year the North Korean women won the U20 Women’s Asian Cup in Uzbekistan. They have won the U17 Asian title in 2007, 2015 and 2017.
Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) said: “This latest achievement by DPR Korea, which underlines their remarkable dominance in women’s youth football, having also won the AFC U20 Women’s Asian Cup™ Uzbekistan 2024 earlier this year, deserves to be applauded.
“It must also be noted that they have reached the final in each of their eight participations and Japan were contesting their seventh final, which indicates the truly commendable and determined developmental efforts of both the DPR Korea Football Association and Japan Football Association in producing top-class women’s age-group national teams over the years,” he continued.
“All three of our teams – DPR Korea, Japan and Korea Republic – are poised to shine in the Dominican Republic and I wish them the very best in their quest to add to the four world titles that Asian teams have won.”
Song Sung Gwon’s North Korean team won the title with a perfect five wins, and without conceding a goal. They dominated the final with Jon Il Chong’s goal in the second half settling the contest.
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