South Korea W vs Morocco W prediction: WORLD: World Cup Women betting tips on match 2023-07-29 04:30.
South Korea’s third successive appearance in the Women’s World Cup (WWC) got off to a dreadful start when they slumped to a 2-0 Group H defeat to Colombia despite starting as the favourites. All of that previous experience on football’s biggest stage is yet to pay dividends for the Koreans, with the defeat to the South Americans their ninth loss in 11 WWC finals outings (W1, D1), and the seventh where they’ve failed to score!
The Taegeuk Ladies will desperately be looking to bounce back and replicate their pre-tournament form where they produced a hat trick of wins, which included back-to-back 5-2 and 5-0 wins over Zambia. They will now come up against another African counterpart in Morocco for the very first time, with whom they share the infamous accolade of finishing as runners-up in their respective continental tournaments last year.
Morocco have the advantage of an extra day's rest, having played their group opener the day prior to the South Koreans, although the mental trauma of the 6-0 humiliation handed to them by Germany may still be lingering in the camp. Their now six-game winless streak (D2, L4) may not look too good on manager Reynald Pedros’ record, although he may be more concerned with simply getting his team to score, something they haven’t managed throughout this poor run.
Despite that blowout against the Germans, the Atlas Lionesses have otherwise posted some good defensive numbers, having kept a clean sheet in four of their seven matches prior. Still, they’ll head into this matchup as sizable underdogs once again, especially considering the 55-place disparity between their FIFA ranking of 72nd and 17th-placed South Korea.
Player to watch: South Korea’s joint-most capped player Cho So-hyun has scored her country's opener in four of her last six international goalscoring outings. Meanwhile, her Tottenham Hotspur teammate Rosella Ayane will be looking to fire Morocco to victory, since she’s won all but one of the international matches in which she found the net (W7, L1).
Hot stat: Just six of the last 23 matches involving either country saw both teams score on the day.