Defending champions North Korea gave Bangladesh Under-16 women’s football team a footballing lesson on Monday when they thrashed them by 9-0 in their opening match of the AFC Under-16 Women’s Championship in Chonburi, Thailand. Bangladesh, appearing in the tournament for the first time since 2005, spent much of the contest in their own half, as the technical and physical superiority of the two-time champions proved too much to handle.
North Korea took just five minutes to take the lead with a booming header from forward Kim Kyong-yong, who bagged five goals in the match.
Kim Kyong-yong doubled Korea’s lead three minutes later with a tap-in when Bangladesh defence failed to deal with a high ball from a wide area.
For the following 20 minutes Golam Robbani Choton’s side managed to hang on until a delightful piece of skill from Kim Ryu-song set up captain Ri Su-gyong for a simple but emphatic finish at the half-hour mark.
That goal was quickly followed by Kim Yun Ok’s long-range 33rd minute strike, and Kim Ryu-song very nearly made it five shortly thereafter, but the score remained 4-0 at half time.
After the break, Kim Kyong-yong repeated her earlier practice of scoring a header within five minutes of the whistle.
This time latching on to Pong Song-Ae’s cross to complete her hat-trick.
A goalkeeping error from Ruksana Begum allowed Yun Ji-hwa to make it six for North Korea.
Kim Kyong-yong scored from another supebr header in the 57th minute and scored her fifth and team’s eighth four minutes from the whistle.
Ri Su-gyong completed the rout with a simple close-range finish in injury time to give DPR Korea their biggest win at the tournament since a 10-0 win over Chinese Taipei in 2013.
Bangladesh will face another daunting task when they take on three-time champions Japan on Thursday.
-With New Age input
