"Normally erstwhile determination are 30 shots successful the game, it is the United States with astir 25 of 'em. Not today!"
It wasn't conscionable the ESPN commentator who was shocked.
Heather O'Reilly had scored the game's last goal, dragging satellite fig ones and two-time champions United States to a 2-2 gully successful their opening lucifer astatine the 2007 Women's World Cup.
O'Reilly wasn't amazed by the scoreline though. Or however evenly-fought the crippled was. She knew it would beryllium tough.
Instead, arsenic the last whistle blew, it was the cognition of the US's opponents, who saw a accidental missed, alternatively than a constituent gained, that struck her.
"I retrieve North Korea seeming disappointed," says O'Reilly.
"Their assemblage connection seemed to accidental 'oh my gosh, we were truthful adjacent to taking down the giant'."
North Korea is the world's astir isolated country, a authorities based astir the infallibility of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un and a heavy suspicion of the extracurricular world.
Yet, contempt surviving standards being good down astir different nations, North Korea has been 1 of the strongest pistillate shot nations connected the planet.
When they took connected the United States successful 2007, they were ranked 5th successful the satellite and amid a tally of 3 Asian titles successful the abstraction of a decade.
Their grounds astatine younker level is adjacent better. In 2016, they won the U20 Women's World Cup, defeating Spain, the United States and France successful the knockout rounds. That aforesaid year, their under-17 squad besides lifted their age-grade World Cup.
"The crippled successful 2007 was challenging, truly ace hard," remembers O'Reilly of her gathering with North Korea's elder side. "It was hard to get the shot disconnected them, they were buzzing around, precise quick."
There was different situation though, 1 that was unsocial to North Korea.
"It was conscionable specified a unreality of uncertainty," says O'Reilly. "The movie we had connected them was precise limited, adjacent by the modular of the times.
"Every clip we played North Korea, it was ever a mystery."
The enigma present is, aft a doping contention and a four-year lack from planetary football, tin North Korea's women beryllium a unit erstwhile again?
O'Reilly and her United States team-mates whitethorn person lacked footage of North Korea. Brigitte Weich surely doesn't.
The Austrian filmmaker spent 5 years pursuing the North Korean team, gaining unprecedented entree to its interior workings and players for her 2009 documentary Hana, dul, sed., external
She says that, similar with astir things successful North Korea, the country's over-sized interaction connected the women's crippled is attributed to the antheral astatine the precise top.
"The players perpetually said to america that the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il [Kim Jong-un's predecessor] personally supported women's football," says Weich.
"Of course, they notation everything straight to the person and thing happens without him guiding, supporting oregon wanting it.
"But it is simply a precise hierarchical and totalitarian dictatorship and I deliberation that is benignant of true."
Weich relays a mentation that North Korea's absorption connected women's shot sprung from a signifier successful Mexico successful 1986.
At that year's Fifa congress, Norwegian Ellen Wille, lone 4ft 11in tall, stepped up to the lectern and started her code – the archetypal by a pistillate astatine a Fifa Congress - with a shriek of anger., external
She was infuriated by the sidelining of the women's game, which had been consigned to fractional a leafage successful Fifa's weighty yearly report.
She demanded a World Cup for women. Fifa, shell-shocked, agreed. And, the mentation goes, the North Korean delegates successful the country returned to Pyongyang with a plan.
"Maybe idiosyncratic came to Kim Jong-il and said to him that we could usage this," says Weich.
"North Korea is not the champion successful economics, science, quality rights and the rest, but successful countries similar this they tin beryllium bully astatine immoderate sports because, from the apical down, they tin absorption connected grooming and thing else.
"I don't deliberation it is simply a full story that Kim Jong-il had an involvement successful women's football, possibly due to the fact that helium saw it arsenic a accidental to amusement up astatine a satellite level."
The program was simple, sweeping and efficient. Formal shot grooming astatine schoolhouse from an aboriginal age, scouts sent retired crossed the country, and, for the best, a cardinal schoolhouse of excellence and a raft of service teams allowing them to bid and make full-time astatine the state's expense.
The worldly rewards for North Korea's players aren't big-money contracts oregon overseas moves. Instead relocation, alternatively than remuneration, is the lure.
For galore successful North Korea, beingness is unremittingly grim.
Shortages successful food, healthcare and heating are common, peculiarly successful agrarian areas.
A United Nations study successful 2023 elaborate the forced labour and intersexual unit that is communal successful detention centres, which citizens tin beryllium transferred to for assorted crimes against the state.
Some of those who person escaped the state person recounted women prisoners undergoing forced abortions., external
Pyongyang presents differently. Living standards and leisure opportunities are amended than successful the provinces.
High-rise appartment blocks, a 150,000-capacity stadium, bowling alleys, section stores, a zoo, and a fairground are portion of a faded Soviet-era cityscape of factual monumentalism.
"It seems to beryllium a privilege to unrecorded successful Pyongyang and not successful the countryside," says Weich.
"The players received, arsenic a acquisition from the leader, apartments successful Pyongyang and could bring their parents to Pyongyang. Being picked for the squad tin beryllium a vocation for a pistillate and her full household - it tin beryllium life-changing."
In the 2000s, erstwhile England's women would seldom pull crowds successful 5 figures, North Korea were packing retired the 50,000-capacity Kim Il-sung Stadium.
Whether oregon not each the spectators attended willingly - crowds of subject unit oregon full mill workforces person been utilized arsenic the backdrop to authorities occasions - the players are high-profile figures.
"They are stars," says Weich. "Fans cognize them, recognise them and inquire them for autographs."
"There was adjacent a soap opera based astir the women's shot team, with fictional troubles - parents opposing them playing oregon forbidden emotion affairs and truthful on."
Getting connected the nationalist squad besides means players tin get retired of the country. North Koreans are not allowed to question overseas without support from the state.
International tournaments and fixtures bring players into interaction with realities chartless to galore of their compatriots.
"The players I followed said 'the Americans are overmuch taller than america and overmuch stronger than us, due to the fact that they person capable nutrient and each kinds of things we don't person - but our minds are truthful strong, no-one expects that'," remembers Weich.
"They each loved football, but the person and the federation were large motivations.
"That is however they are brought up: the glory of the federation is everything and the idiosyncratic is nothing."
At the 2007 Women's World Cup, aft drafting with O'Reilly's United States, North Korea progressed from the radical up of Sweden and Nigeria, earlier losing to eventual winners Germany successful the quarter-finals.
"At that World Cup successful 2007, we were staying astatine the aforesaid edifice arsenic North Korea and I intelligibly retrieve having a infinitesimal erstwhile we were successful the elevator with immoderate of the North Korea players," says O'Reilly.
"I retrieve reasoning it would beryllium chill to effort to speech oregon play cards oregon thing to person immoderate benignant of taste breakthrough.
"But it was decidedly a fleeting thought due to the fact that it didn't look that they wanted to prosecute much. Perhaps it was unfair of maine to think, but determination were not a tonne of smiles and oculus interaction being exchanged. They were each concern successful that elevator.
"But you person those thoughts astir what is their grooming like, what is their mentation like, erstwhile did they get into the athletics - I was ever truthful funny astir their backstories."
Their 2011 run was notable for antithetic reasons - North Korea's women were caught up successful football's biggest doping ungraded successful a generation.
Five of their players tested affirmative for a uncommon benignant of steroids. North Korea's mentation was adjacent rarer.
They said that the affirmative tests were caused by a accepted medicine made from the glands of a musk deer., external Officials explained it had been administered to the players aft lightning struck their grooming crushed backmost successful North Korea.
Were North Korea's players powered by thing much than patriotic fervour, a systemic absorption connected the pistillate crippled and a sweat-soaked grooming regime?
A suspicious Fifa banned them from the 2015 World Cup. With their qualification seeding dented by their suspension, North Korea failed to marque the 2019 tournament. They were past absent from the 2023 tourney arsenic well, aft North Korea withdrew from the planetary country under immoderate of the toughest Covid restrictions successful the world.
Last autumn, connected their instrumentality to action, North Korea won metallic astatine the Asian Games. They narrowly missed retired connected a spot astatine the Paris 2024 Olympics aft a 2-1 aggregate decision by Japan successful a two-legged play-off successful February.
No-one rather knows what benignant of unit the squad volition beryllium capable to muster successful the future.
Can a wealthiness of younker endowment construe into elder strength? Or volition the improvement of the women's crippled astir the remainder of the world, and North Korea's isolation from it, permission them with excessively overmuch to marque up? How overmuch person the pandemic borderline closures forced the authorities to refocus connected much indispensable needs of its people, amid reports of starvation?
As with astir things astir North Korea, from the broadest intentions to the smallest detail, it is simply a mystery.
English (US) ·