North Korea face Vietnam on Christmas Day in Asian Cup warm up

North Korea will play Vietnam on Christmas Day in a warm-up friendly for the Asian Cup. Unlike a lot of other teams, the North Koreans are still playing friendlies whereas a lot of the other nations who will be at the finals have played a couple of friendlies, and now will have training camps to prepare. 

Vietnam will be good preparation 

Vietnam will be excellent preparation for the Asian Cup for North Korea, that is because Vietnam is one of the best up-and-coming Asian sides at the moment. It could just be a good generation of players, or Vietnam could be really developing well who knows, but they will give North Korea a great warm-up match.

North Korea has a tricky group in the finals, where they will face Saudi Arabia, Palestine (who topped their qualifying group) and Qatar. So it's understandable they wanted decent friendlies, Vietnam being the first of a doubleheader. They'll face Vietnam on 25/12 and then Bahrain on 29/12.

North Korea's inexperienced coach doing all he can to prepare

North Korea hired inexperienced coach Kim Yong-jun and he is seemingly doing all he can to get them prepared for their tough group. They're likely going to play a very defensive style of football which is synonymous with all of North Korean football. Hoping to be rigid and hit teams on the counter.

I believe Kim Yong-jun will have to have some magic up his sleeve though because as things stand the chances of them getting out of the group to look slim. It could be argued that their group could be one of the trickiest at the finals, so if they do get out of it then North Korea's young manager has done an excellent job, and will deserve a lot of praise for that.