North Korea Beats South Korea 2-1 in First Women’s Club Match on Southern Soil in 8 Years
Updated
Updated · The Washington Post · May 21
North Korea Beats South Korea 2-1 in First Women’s Club Match on Southern Soil in 8 Years
10 articles · Updated · The Washington Post · May 21
Naegohyang, North Korea’s women’s club team, beat South Korea’s Suwon FC Women 2-1 on Wednesday in Suwon, ending a rare inter-Korean match with smiles after a notably cold visit.
The game marked the first time North Korean athletes had competed in South Korea since 2018 and the first women’s club soccer match ever between the two Koreas.
27 players and 12 staff arrived via Beijing because no direct inter-Korean travel exists, and the team kept its distance throughout the trip, ignoring airport greeters and asking that the South Korean team stay at a different hotel.
About 7,000 seats sold out within a day, though heavy rain cut attendance; thousands still came, including civic groups and families divided by war hoping the match might revive the spirit of past sports diplomacy.
That hope ran up against the worst inter-Korean relations in years, with Pyongyang now calling the South an enemy state and treating the visit as a strictly competitive obligation tied to the AFC semifinal.
After an eight-year freeze, is one soccer game enough to signal a real thaw in inter-Korean relations?
What does North Korea’s calculated coldness during this rare exchange reveal about its long-term global strategy?