To face a challenge is to have something difficult in front of you that you cannot walk round. Thirty new names by Friday and no one to ask.
Face is the confronting verb across English — you face facts, a fine, the sack, the music — and it always puts the difficulty in front of you rather than behind. The phrase says nothing about whether you win, only that you are standing there. Rise to a challenge is the winning half, and daunting, formidable and considerable are the adjectives a report reaches for first.
1phraseface a challengeTo have to deal with something difficult.
“New teachers face a challenge in their first week.”
face a challenge is a confrontation with difficulty.
Practised in Common Word Pairs