North Korea's World Cup - from behind the DMZ
Updated on 21 June 2010
As the North Korean team prepare for their second World Cup match, this time against Portugal, documentary maker Simon Cockerell and North Korean defector Jin Lee lift the lid for Channel 4 News on how North Korea's World Cup will be received back home, while Inigo Gilmore casts an eye over their "fans".
North Korea's footballers arrived at their team hotel in Cape Town yesterday as they prepare to face Portugal in their second match of the 2010 World Cup.
The North Koreans opened their campaign last week with a spirited 2-1 display against Brazil.
Portugal, who drew 0-0 with Ivory Coast in their opening game, face elimination if they lose to North Korea, with their final group game against five times World Cup winners Brazil.
The North Koreans must also at least draw to keep alive their ambitions of reaching the knock-out stages of the competition.
After Brazil, excitement will be high in Pyongyang
In the wake of the Chollima team's unexpectedly robust performance against Brazil - in which they held back wave after wave of attacks from the five-times champions until finally conceding two exceptionally well taken goals, and then finally netting with a move that any team would have been proud of - the big question being asked is this: do the 24 million people squeezed between the DMZ and the Yalu river know anything about this?
Did they drive around Pyongyang honking horns and waving flags at 5am local time when Ji Yun-Nam slotted home a historic consolation goal to send the literally dozens of DPRK supporters (be they Koreans, Chinese ringers, or simply keen fans of the underdog) in the crowd into ecstasy? Do they even like football in North Korea? Do they even have televisions?
The basic facts are these. Football is the national sport, the most watched and followed sport in the country, although in terms of actual participation it probably loses out to volleyball, a game usually played by men and women together, writes Simon Cockerell.
Seemingly randomly selected soccer matches from overseas leagues are shown every weekend on the Mansudae cultural channel (only broadcast at weekends). Average North Koreans don't get much of a chance to see high level men's football featuring their own national team as, quite frankly, the men's team has been pretty terrible for years.
They play well attended qualifiers for the Olympics, Asian championships, and World Cup every few years to keen and occasionally passionate crowds at the Kim Il Sung Stadium in central Pyongyang, or the Yanggakdo Stadium on an island in the river running through the capital. But it's been a long time since they have had a team this good.
However the story is different in the women's game at which North Korea have excelled for many years. They have won World Cups at various levels and continue to be ranked in the top five in the world by Fifa. Women's games in North Korea are at least as well attended as those featuring their male counterparts.
Professional footballers in North Korea don't enjoy the same rock star level of fame as they do in England and elsewhere, but then neither do North Korean rock stars! The average person would struggle to name more than one or two of the team, and they enjoy relative anonymity on the street.
Their private lives remain outside of the public eye as well, with no news of their WAGS, any naughty off-field antics, or even reports of any rampant conspicuous consumption.
Football is never televised live in the DPRK. Games are generally shown one or two days later at prime time on the state TV channel. Thus far in this world cup highlights packages of all the games - except the South Korea v Greece match - have been shown on the state TV channel.
And on the evening of 16 June, one day after the rest of the world had watched the national team's heroics, the people of North Korea watched as their team struggled valiantly against the top ranked team in the world.
They’ll have seen this match as the time the DPRK men's team came of age once again, and excitement will now be high, especially if a similar level of football can be played against Portugal and Ivory Coast.
Simon Cockerell is general manager of Koryo Tours, which has produced three award-winning documentaries about North Korea.
Today's game has significant history behind it. North Korea's only other appearance at the World Cup, in England in 1966, saw them beat Italy before losing 5-3 to the Portuguese in the quarterfinals.
In that game, the North Korans went 3-0 up within 23 minutes, only to concede five in a remarkable comeback by Portugal. Portugal were defeated 2-0 by England in the semifinals.
The slogan on the side of North Korea's team bus in South Africa clearly states the country's intentions. It reads: "1966 again! Victory for DPR of Korea!"
'Playing for the honour'
Jin Lee, who defected from North Korea four years ago, told Channel 4 News that football is one of the most popular sports inside North Korea, along with baseball and volley ball. He hopes his team will play as well or better against Portugal today than they did against Brazil.
"There are football clubs in most towns, cities and major institutions such as the military and schools," he said.
"Each province and the national institutions, such as the military, has its official football team that competes for the national championship once a year. The military have three teams that compete.
"They don't sell the tickets, but the government allocates tickets to each institution so people can ask for one.
"A few of the best players are quite well known to the national public, but mostly the individual player is much less advertised that they are in the UK Premier league.
"People may want to be a footballer and ultimately want to play in the national league, but the pay is so small even at the top level that no one can become a football player without financial support from their family. Ten years ago the pay was enough for a football player to support himself.
"Some good players are collected from the regional representative teams to the central football association where national representative team is managed. Money is not involved in this so people do it for the honour.
"In athletics, for example, there was one Olympic Gold medal and Kim Jong Il made it national holiday to celebrate it."
