Asian Cup 2015: North Korea to take on Uzbekistan at Stadium Australia

WE’D love to bring you the most provoking thoughts from North Korea’s inner sanctum this week as they prepare for the Asian Cup, but ...

Members of the North Korea football team during a training session at Leichhardt Oval ahead of their opening Asian Cup match. Picture: Richard Dobson

WE’D love to bring you the most provocative thoughts from North Korea’s inner sanctum this week as they prepare for the Asian Cup (sorry, from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, we’ll get into trouble otherwise). Or indeed any thoughts. From the outer-most sanctum if necessary.

Perhaps not surprisingly though, the nation which is comfortably the most extreme even at this, arguably the world’s least democratic football tournament, isn’t so keen on parlaying with the outside world.

When Group B, which kicks off in Sydney on Saturday night was drawn, there were immediate gags about the literal Group of Death, and it does sound a little like a stand-up comic’s geo-political routine (an absolute monarchy, a communist state, an unchallenged Dear Leader and a lifetime President who usually polls around 91% all walk into a football tournament...)

SILENCE AT NORTH KOREA TRAINING

But somewhere in among the totalitarian jokes, a football match is threatening to break out. One of the quirks of the Asian Cup is that organisers like to put teams in the same hotel, so the arrival of the North Koreans (sorry, it’s just habit) this week was watched not only by the indigenous welcoming group but also most of the Uzbekistan squad across the upmarket foyer.

It’s a strange intimacy, drinking coffee at adjoining couches to the side against whom you are about to begin your Asian Cup campaign, but the Uzbeks didn’t seem overly concerned. Even when the two teams kick off Group B tonight at ANZ Stadium, Uzbekistan believe ultimately it will be Saudi Arabia and China who offer a stiffer test.

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But then the Uzbeks are certainly under rather less stress than the Koreans, given the public humiliation inflicted on the latter’s squad that qualified for the 2010 World Cup but lost 7-0 to Portugal in South Africa in what was unhelpfully the first game ever shown live by state television.

Members of the North Korea football team at Leichhardt.

In fact it’s more for their own protection than anything that the Korean players are not put up for interview, though their lack of English is also a factor. The handful of players in the squad who speak Japanese are more relaxed with Japanese-speaking media, according to long-time observers of a team which has more interraction with the outside world than almost any other facet of their closed society.

Few outside their home country give them much chance at a tournament where they have already lost their coach to suspension, after a blast at a referee, and their best-known striker, South Korea-based Jong Tae Se, hasn’t been picked. But their first opponents are wary, for all that they see the other teams in the Group as a greater challenge.

“They are a very tough team, Korea,” mused Anzur Ismailov, the defender who plays for Chinese club Changchun Yatai. “They’re really tight and play from defence. If we score one goal it will be good for us. We are looking forward to this first game, that is our only focus.

“But we have a lot of experience, we have a good mix. I hope we are going to the final.”

Semifinalists last time, Uzbekistan are very keen on the idea of going one better - to the extent of spending the past month in Dubai on a training camp in preperation. “There it was very hot, so I think the weather here will not be a problem for us,” said Ismailov. They also have the most international experience in Group B, with eight of their squad playing abroad - compared with four of the North Koreans, and none of those in the Chinese and Saudi Arabian squads.

Socceroos fans should also keep one eye on Group B, for it’s where Australia’s opponents in the next round - qualifying assumed - will come from. And of course it was Uzbekistan who Australia humbled 6-0 in the semifinal four years ago, something the players have pointedly been urged to remember by supporters back home.

Meanwhile, back in the hotel foyer, the North Koreans finally were able to head to their rooms, away from inquisitve eyes - and questions. Their media officer politely declined all requests for interviews, the first time at least. The second time he waved a hand in your correspondent’s face. Their talking, it seems, in the old cliche, will have to come on the pitch.

Originally published as Asian Cup 2015: North Korea to take on Uzbekistan at Stadium Australia