Mitch Freeley

You can watch the Live Match Stream of North Korea Vs Qatar via beIN CONNECT

Stadium - Sheikh Khalifa International Stadium

Kick-Off - 14:00pm

Watch Online - beIN CONNECT

North Korea is set to be another challenge for Felix Sanchez’s Qatar side when the two teams face off Al Ain on Sunday afternoon. 
Despite being humbled 4-0 by Saudi Arabia in their group opener, the North Koreans certainly showed their defensive qualities in the first thirty minutes against their opponents to show that they have the potential to frustrate Qatar. 

The first order of business for Sanchez will be stressing to his young side to start on the front foot. Al Annabi looked sluggish in the opening exchanges against Lebanon and could have been significantly punished against a better side. Qatar also breathed a huge sigh of relief when Ali Hamam’s goal was chalked off for a foul in the buildup. 

Regardless, Qatar showed patience and resilience to compose themselves to impose their passing game and goals from Bassam Al Rawi & Almoez Ali eventually handed the 2022 hosts the three points. 

Despite the slow start, Sanchez was clear that his side will stay true to their style.  

"Each match is different and we cannot renounce the way we play," he said. "It's difficult to change now, but we need to find solutions to be more close to the opposition's goal.

"But in front, you always have an opponent and Lebanon showed they're a well-organised team and they were very physical. This was the first game and it's never easy to do the right thing all the time in the first game”

Qatar has one of the youngest sides in the tournament, and despite the slow start, Sanchez is expecting further improvement for the side. 

"But the team showed they were patient enough and, hopefully, in the next game we will perform better and do something that we couldn't do in the last game."

North Korea will be without influential winger Kwang Song Han who picked up a red card against Saudi Arabia. The loss of the Cagliari man will mean that the goal-scoring burden will be on Switzerland based attacker Pak Kwang-ryong.  

Sanchez is likely to hand a starting role to AFC Player of the Year Abdulkarim Hassan after making a decisive impact from the bench and may elect to start Abdulaziz Hatem over Karim Boudiaf in central midfield. 

For now, the focus for Qatar will be just to get the three points to progress to the round of sixteen before the attention turns to a tie against Saudi Arabia which could decide the winner of Group E.