JINAN, August 31 (Xinhua) — Australian head coach Tom Sermanni played moderation while his counterpart of the DPR Korean women's soccer team acted mysterious as always here on Wednesday when they both here attending a press conference ahead of the Asian qualifying tournament for the 2012 Olympic Games, slated on September 1-11.

"This will be a very tough tournament. Every team could be difficult," said Sermanni. "(Comparing to the World Cup where Japan won the title) this tournament is more difficult. Five games in ten days. It's a very tight schedule. And my team is better against the western teams and not good at dealing with these technically difficult teams of Asia."

Six teams are here vying over ten days for just two tickets to the London Games next year. While Australia play DPR Korea, the newly crowned World Cup winners Japan will encounter the sole qualifiers Thailand before the hosts China take upstarts South Korea on Thursday evening.

Sermanni's side beat the DPR Koreans in last year's Asian Cup final on penalties after the duo tied 0-0 after extra time, but the coach said they didn't get boosted from that game.

"I don't think the Australians get advantage. We just won on penalties and they performed very well then," he said.

Even the suspension on five DPR Korean players can't make Sermanni any easier, just like his Korean counterpart did.

"In preparation for this tournament, we have a whole new team since a lot of players can't play here. We have a very young team and very short preparation for this tournament," said Shen Yiqin (sorry, only got the man's name in Chinese) who just took over the charge of the national team after last July's World Cup.

The coach, however, said the suspension of their five players, who were banned to be out for 18 months after failing a drug test, won't affect too much to the team's performance. And he gave no explanation.

Le convocate: