SEOUL—North and South Korea may not be conversing much these days. But the two neighboring countries will meet Tuesday for a men’s soccer World Cup qualifier match in Pyongyang.
It’s the first inter-Korean home game for the North Korean men’s team in nearly three decades. But even before the opening kick at Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Stadium, the North is pitching a shutout against the South. No live broadcast. No cheer squad. No traveling news media.
Whether South Korea, ranked No. 37 in the latest FIFA rankings, gets similarly rejected on the soccer pitch can’t be ruled out.
The North Koreans, ranked No. 113 globally, should clearly be underdogs. Their country is hard-hit by sanctions that have rocked the regime’s economy. The North has beaten the South only once in 16 previous tries.
But that victory came in the 1990 match played in Pyongyang. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, since taking power nearly eight years ago, has funneled more resources to boost the regime’s soccer competitiveness, like hiring a foreign coach for the first time in 2016, Norwegian manager Jørn Andersen.
Even though the North missed out on the past two World Cup tournaments, in 2014 and 2018, the extra investment has shown some payoff. The squad’s star player, Han Kwang Song, was recruited this year to the under-23-year-old squad of Juventus, the Italian powerhouse. The North’s path to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, through two matches in the second round of qualifications, is unblemished: two wins against zero losses.
Football Foes
The North and South Korean men’s soccer team have played against each other 16 times.
Match result
Dec. 20, 1978
Sept. 28, 1980
Oct. 16, 1989
July 29, 1990
Oct. 11, 1990
Oct. 23, 1990
Aug. 24, 1992
Oct. 28, 1993
Aug. 4, 2005
Feb. 20, 2008
March 26, 2008
June 22, 2008
Sept. 10, 2008
April 1, 2009
Aug. 9, 2015
Dec. 12, 2017
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“North Korean soccer isn’t the most advanced, but the country has time after time shown performance that goes beyond its FIFA rankings,” said Kim Kyung-sung, chairman of the South and North Korean Sports Exchange Association, a South Korean group that regularly organizes inter-Korean youth soccer matches.
Some soccer experts suggest the inter-Korean match could be closer than expected because Pyongyang is such a foreign environment.
The South Korean team’s journey to North Korea took almost a full day and required a lengthy stopover in Beijing for travel visas. That’s despite Seoul and Pyongyang being separated by roughly 120 miles—about the same distance from New York to Atlantic City, N.J.
Once in the North, the South Korean players face other adjustments, from the inability to move freely around Pyongyang, restrictions on mobile-phone use and even Kim Il Sung Stadium’s pitch of plastic grass.
A crowd of 50,000 North Koreans, if past practice holds true, will be noisy. The partisanship has been so strong that FIFA had to move a 2008 match from Pyongyang to Shanghai—because the North refused to play the South’s anthem or raise its flag.
“The unfamiliar atmosphere can be difficult for athletes. The food and the language may be the same, but there are factors that can intimidate them,” said Yoon Deok-yeo, who played against North Korea in the 1990 match in Pyongyang and returned there two years ago as the South Korean national women’s team coach.
The journey to the 2022 World Cup is far from over, so whoever takes the loss on Tuesday still has a shot at Qatar. Twelve of the 40 Asia-Pacific squads will advance to a final round that ultimately winnows the World Cup-qualifying group down by roughly half.
The North Korean men’s team has competed in two World Cups. At the 1966 World Cup hosted by England it reached the quarterfinals. It qualified for the 2010 competition in South Africa, though the North lost all three matches. South Korea has qualified for the past nine World Cup tournaments.
The Tuesday inter-Korean match comes amid a prolonged diplomatic stalemate between Seoul and Pyongyang. The two sides haven’t talked much after February’s nuclear summit between Mr. Kim and President Trump ended abruptly without a deal. Their strains were highlighted recently by an inability to collaborate over the spread of African swine fever, which may have spread from the North to the South.
Inter-Korean matches always have unexpected variables because rivalry and tensions can affect athletic performance, said Park Moon-sung, a soccer commentator in South Korea.
“There are a lot of complicated matters at play,” Mr. Park said.
Write to Eun-Young Jeong at Eun-Young.Jeong@wsj.com
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2019-10-14 11:15:00Z
https://www.wsj.com/articles/north-and-south-korea-get-ready-to-do-battleon-the-soccer-field-11571051634
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