” Usually when there are 30 pictures in the game, it is the United States with about 25 of ‘ em. No today”!
It was n’t just the ESPN commentator who was shocked.
Heather O’Reilly had scored the show’s final aim, dragging world number ones and two-time leaders United States to a 2-2 bring in their beginning meet at the 2007 Women’s World Cup.
O’Reilly was n’t surprised by the scoreline though. Or how evenly-fought the match was. She knew it would be hard.
Rather, as the last whistle blew, it was the approach of the US’s critics, who saw a chance missed, rather than a place gained, that struck her.
” I remember North Korea seeming dissatisfied”, says O’Reilly.
They said,” We were so close to taking down the big,” and their body language sounded like that.
North Korea is the most secluded nation in the world, a position built on Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un’s unwavering disregard for the outside world and his omnipotence.
But North Korea has been one of the world’s best female football players despite living conditions that are far below average for most other countries.
In 2007, they were ranked second in the world, just three places short of the Asian title apiece.
Even better is their youth-level history. In 2016, they won the U20 Women’s World Cup, defeating Spain, the United States and France in the knockout sessions. That same year, their under-17 team even lifted their age-grade World Cup.
” The sport in 2007 was tough, really very hard”, remembers O’Reilly of her conference with North Korea’s top part. ” It was hard to get the ball off them, they were buzzing around, quite quick”.
There was another problem nevertheless, one that was unique to North Korea.
” It was just like a fog of uncertainty”, says O’Reilly. ” The film we had on them was pretty minimal, even by the standard of the times.
” Every day we played North Korea, it was always a secret.”
The secret now is, after a doping disagreement and a four-year emergence from foreign football, you North Korea’s women remain a force after again?
O’Reilly and her American team-mates may not have captured any Northern Korean action. Brigitte Weich certainly does n’t.
For her 2009 video Hana, dul, sed, the Austrian director followed the North Korean group for five years, gaining unheard of access to its internal workings and players.
She says that, like with most things in North Korea, the government’s over-sized effect on the women’s activity is attributed to the person at the very top.
” The people frequently said to us that the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il]Kim Jong-un’s father ] physically supported children’s football,” says Weich.
Everything happens without the chief guiding, supporting, or wanting it, they say, of course, and they always refer to the head.
However, I believe that is a pretty structured and totalitarian tyranny.
Weich posits that the emphasis on women’s soccer in North Korea derived from a 1986 performance on a stage in Mexico.
At that month’s Fifa parliament, Norwegian Ellen Wille, just 4ft 11in high, stepped up to the pulpit and started her speech – the first by a woman at a Fifa Congress- with a scream of anger.
The children’s game’s sidelining, which had been left alone in Fifa’s lengthy quarterly review, irritated her.
She pleaded for a female World Cup. Fifa, shell-shocked, agreed. According to principle, the North Vietnamese delegations who were present also had a plan for their return to Pyongyang.
” Maybe people came to Kim Jong-il and said to him that we could use this”, says Weich.
” North Korea is not the best in economy, technology, individual freedom and the rest, but in nations like this they can be great at some sports because, from the top down, they can concentrate on teaching and nothing else.
” I do n’t think it is a total myth that Kim Jong-il had an interest in women’s football, perhaps because he saw it as a chance to show up at a world level.”
The plan was simple, sweeping and efficient. For the best, a central school of excellence, a raft of army teams, and intensive football training at school that allows them to work and develop full-time at the state’s expense, as well as scouts sent out across the country.
The material rewards for North Korea’s players are n’t big-money contracts or overseas moves. Instead relocation, rather than remuneration, is the lure.
For many in North Korea, life is unremittingly grim.
Shortages in food, healthcare and heating are common, particularly in rural areas.
In a 2023 report from the UN, a report on the sexual abuse and forced labor that are prevalent in detention facilities for various crimes against the state was released.
Some of the people who have fled the country have remarked on forced abortions by prisoners.
Pyongyang presents differently. Better living standards and recreational opportunities exist than in the provinces.
High-rise appartment blocks, a 150, 000-capacity stadium, bowling alleys, department stores, a zoo, and a fairground are part of a faded Soviet-era cityscape of concrete monumentalism.
” It seems to be a privilege to live in Pyongyang and not in the countryside,” says Weich.
” The players received, as a gift from the leader, apartments in Pyongyang and could bring their parents to Pyongyang. A woman’s career and her entire family could benefit from being chosen for the team, which could change their lives.
In the 2000s, when England’s women would rarely attract crowds in five figures, North Korea were packing out the 50, 000-capacity Kim Il-sung Stadium.
The players are well-known figures, whether or not all of the spectators were willing to watch state events, whether they were large crowds of military personnel or entire factory workers.
” They are stars,” says Weich”. Fans know them, recognise them and ask them for autographs.”
There was even a soap opera about the women’s football team, which had fictional problems like parents’ opposing their playing or forbidden love affairs, etc.
Players can also leave the country by playing for the national team. Without the state’s approval, North Koreans are not permitted to travel abroad.
Players come into contact with realities that are not well known to many of their fellow citizens through international competitions and fixtures.
No-one expects that because the Americans have so many things to do with our minds, but the players I followed said,” but the Americans are much taller than us and much stronger than us, because they have enough food and all kinds of things we do n’t have,” recalls Weich.
” They all loved football, but the leader and the nation were big motivations.
The nation’s glory is everything, and the individual is nothing, according to the saying.
At the 2007 Women’s World Cup, after drawing with O’Reilly’s United States, North Korea progressed from the group ahead of Sweden and Nigeria, before losing to eventual winners Germany in the quarter-finals.
” I can recall having a moment when we were in the elevator with some of the North Korean players at that World Cup in 2007 when we were staying at the same hotel as them,” says O’Reilly.
” I remember thinking trying to talk or play cards or anything else would be cool to try to achieve some sort of cultural breakthrough.
It was undoubtedly a fleeting thought because it appeared as though they did n’t care much. Although there were not many smiles and eye contact being exchanged, I suppose it was unfair of me to think that way. They were all business in that elevator.
However, you still have those thoughts about what their training entails, how they prepare for the sport, and how long ago I was a fan.
Their 2011 campaign was notable for different reasons- North Korea’s women were caught up in football’s biggest doping scandal in a generation.
Five of their players had a rare type of steroids tested. North Korea’s explanation was even rarer.
They claimed a traditional medicine made from musk deer glands was to blame for the positive tests. After lightning struck their training facility back in North Korea, officials explained that it had been given to the players.
Did the players in North Korea have more to offer than just patriotic fervour, a systemic emphasis on female players, and a sweaty training regimen?
Last autumn, on their return to action, North Korea won silver at the Asian Games. After falling to Japan 2-1 on aggregate in a two-legged play-off in February, they snuck in on a spot in Paris 2024 Olympics.
No one is entirely certain how much of a force the team will be able to put forth in the future.
Can a youth’s talent be translated into seniority? Or will they have to make up for the lack of resources due to North Korea’s isolation from the rest of the world and the development of the women’s game? In response to reports of starvation, how much have the authorities been forced to refocus on more pressing needs for the country’s citizens?
As with most things about North Korea, from the broadest intentions to the smallest detail, it is a mystery.
