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Let There Be Blood!

It’s a rare moment when I express even mild interest in metric football, otherwise known as soccer. This year, however, North and South Korea have both qualified for the World Cup, which holds the distant promise to beat down the saccharine we-are-one, brotherly-love hippie crap of the 90’s. According to this pernicious stupidity, sports could overcome differences between nations with diametrically opposed interests, values, and psychologies. It hasn’t quite worked out that way.

It’s enough to make you retch. On more than one occasion, it did make me retch. South Korea’s idea of brotherly love with the North was laden with venom, even racism and an easy tolerance of the most profound evils occurring in our time. I ask you — what, short of war, would do more to bathe, shave, and detoxify this hippie pablum than a nice, bloody soccer riot — a Korean War redux on the field? In war, there is no substitute for victory, even if what it takes to win is to send in the Hanson brothers and plant a few of these guys in the stands:


Scottish Soccer Hooligans – For more funny movies, click here

8 Responses

  1. I think that video’s from the same era that this happened — and that was during a peace process in the context of a conflict minute compared to the Korean one. At that rate, it’d be hard to imagine a DPRK vs ROK game could even go ahead.

    Incidentally, I imagine it would only be a certain type of North Korean who’d even be allowed – let alone be able to afford – to travel to the tournament?

  2. There have been, I think, at least four competitive matches between the ROK and DPRK in the last year or two. The games scheduled to be played in NK were moved to China because the North objected to the use of the South Korean flag and national anthem on their own turf, I believe. I went to one of the games which was held in Seoul, and somewhat interestingly, there were a huge number of foreigners in attendance. The games are usually pretty dour affairs, as the North are generally content to play for a scoreless draw and tend to put all their men behind the ball. It’s generally a very tame affair in terms of crowd reaction – as someone mentioned, there are very few North Korean supporters, if any.

    Unfortunately, unless both teams manage to progress some distance within the World Cup (unlikely) there will be no World Cup matchup between the two teams, as given that both teams are from Asia, they will be placed into different groups. North Korea vs the US is a possibility though, which would be much more interesting to say the least. I have to admit that I’m very excited to see how the North Koreans fare next year.

  5. The North Korea team will be a hot story in next years World Cup, regardless of who they play. They had a great run in the World Cup in 1966, the only other time they qualified. Though I don’t see them doing much in South Africa. Asia shouldn’t be getting 4 automatic bids, plus a possible fifth in a playoff vs. New Zealand.

    And heck, USA-South Korea would be an interesting match. I remember the game in 2002, when the South had their noses out of joint about an Olympic speed-skating controversy.