The United States women’s national team begins the knockout stage of the Under-20 Women’s World Cup in Canada on Saturday with a quarterfinal bout against North Korea in Toronto. Team USA are the defending champions, and are trying to make it three titles in four editions — and now they face yet another tournament favorite.A young USA team has not had an easy go of it thus far. In a difficult group stage — which, granted, wasn’t made any easier by a brutal draw — they started off poorly with a 2-0 loss to Germany. That was followed by a late 1-0 win over Brazil. Finally, needing a victory to control their own fate for progress into the next round, the unchained Americans finally put together a coherent performance and soundly beat China 3-0.Still, they didn’t win their group, as the Germans came back from a halftime deficit to beat Brazil 5-1 in their own group stage finale. That meant they took Group B, relegating the Americans to second place and a date with the winners of Group A. Unfortunately, that’s North Korea, rather than runners-up Canada, who only just snuck ahead of Ghana by beating the practically-qualified North Koreans…