FIFA World Cup 2010
Korea DPR
 Korea DPRDPR Korea Football Association Best Results
World Cup Quarter-finals, 1966 AFC Asian Cup Fourth place, 1980 |
After 44 years of its first and only appearance in the FIFA World Cup, North Korea will participate again in the most important football tournament of the world at the 2010 South Africa World Cup.
After such a long time, the new North Korea team comes to South Africa with great expectations in their second World Cup, where they will try to emulate the excellent performance they had in the World Cup of England in 1966. On that occasion the squad of North Korea beat Italy 1-0 heading into the quarter-finals; stage in which they also surprised everyone by scoring three goals in the first 25 minutes of play against Portugal. However, the Portuguese squad recovered and scored five straight goals and eliminated North Korea, 5-3. Despite this defeat, the team of North Korea of 1966 made history, since they became the first Asian team to advance further than the first round in a World Cup.
However, North Korea will not have an easy task in the group stage this year. They are in Group G, which is one of the called "Groups of Death". Their first opponent will be one of the all-time favorites: Brazil. After that, North Korea will meet Portugal once again and lastly they'll face Ivory Coast.
Qualifying Stage
North Korea faced a challenging qualification stage which consisted of 16 games in 20 months. In the first round, the "Chollima" (an icon of the Asian culture) defeated Mongolia in both games (as visitors and as locals) and got straight to the third round. The North Koreans advanced to the fourth round in the second place of Group B after two victories against Turkmenistan and Jordan and a draw with South Korea.
During the last stage of the qualification stage, the North Koreans got three victories (two against United Arab Emirates and one against Saudi Arabia at home), three draws (two at home against Korea and Iran and one as visitor against Saudi Arabia) and only two defeats (as visitors in Iran and the Republic of Korea). This was enough to comfortably ensure a spot in South Africa in second place of the group.
Players
Most of the North Korean players play in national clubs and do not have much experience in international games. For this reason, the international players called to the national team are an essential part of the squad. Such is the case of Hong Yong-Jo, striker of FC Rostov in Russia, who was one of the key players during the qualifying stage, and Jong Tae-Se, who plays in Japan. However among the local players there are excellent figures such as Mun In-Guk, the midfielder who set the pace of the team, and Ri Myong-Guk, who is defends the North Korean goal.
Head Coach
Kim Jong-Hun is the North Korean coach. He hopes to lead his team into great results this year and revive the illusion that he felt as a child when he saw the national team reaching the quarter-finals in 1966.
Jong-Hun is a coach that knows how to introduce attacks in his opponents' areas in a smart way.
Offensive is the priority in his game strategy. His defense scheme of 4-5-1 or 5-4-1 formations is somewhat untraditional nowadays, but he considers it to be the one that will lead his team to victory.