Young Matildas ready for DPR Korea

The Young Matildas kick off their AFC U-19 Women’s Championship 2013 campaign against DPR Korea tonight.

The Young Matildas kick off their AFC U-19 Women-s Championship 2013 campaign against DPR Korea tonight and are aiming to finish in the top-three to qualify for the FIFA U-20 Women-s World Cup 2014.

Both nations qualified for this year-s tournament after finishing in the top five of the last edition in 2011 in Vietnam. The Koreans were the runners-up while Australia finished in fifth place.

Their match will be the third match to kick off on the tournament-s opening day on Friday at the Jiangsu Football Training Base Stadium.

DPR Korea coach Hwang Yong-bong finds it hard to guess the outcome of tonight's fixture.

"We have been preparing for this for the last five months and we managed to improve physically, mentally and in terms of our skills,” said Hwang (pictured). “Our target is to qualify for the World Cup. We want show DPR Korea-s unique football which is very exciting.

“I think all six teams are equally strong and we don-t know much about Australia. As this is our first match, it is very difficult to guess the result as well. But we will do our best to win the match.”

Australia head coach Spencer Prior said: “We have participated in the IWF Championship in Myanmar recently and all the preparation went very well.

“We could not qualify for the World Cup since 2006, so we-ll do our best to finish in the top three this time but at the same time I also want to emphasise on fair play and showing good football as well.”

The top three finishers in the tournament will qualify for the 2014 FIFA U-20 Women-s World Cup in August hosted by Canada.