South Korea –vs- North Korea: World Cup Asian Qualifier

Live sports have always been a favorite of mine! Being in Seoul for the N. Korea/S. Korea match put things on a new level! A huge group of us “Waygooken” (foreigners) decided to get together and root for our host-country.




Korea is ALWAYS crowded, but I’ve never seen anything like the crowds that were in the subway on game day. A portion of the ride there was normal, but a few stops from World Cup Stadium the ride got intense. People just kept pushing and pushing into the subway cars. I’m sure we doubled capacity-no one could move or breathe. It was comical and of course all of the foreigners, including myself snapped a few pictures to try and give those from home a glimpse into what “crowded” really means.




The station is really cool-once you come out you go up the escalators to the stadium. Fortunately Koreans don’t practice inflation and I was able to get a S. Korea jersey for 10,000 W and Red Devil Horns for only 3,000 W. At home-this never would have happened at a game of this magnitude! What makes it even better is that I bought 6 beers for the price of 2 at Bush Stadium. (18,000 W for 6 –vs- $16.50 for 2 at Bush). Another funny fact is that the S. Korean team is called the "Red Devils" but the jerseys have a tiger on them!



The South Koreans were very respectful and stood during North Korea’s National Anthem (I was somewhat surprised to see this considering the mounting animosities between the divided nations) When South Korea’s anthem was played, one side of the stadium lifted up an enormous Korean flag-it was beautiful.


The game was just o.k., but the atmosphere was great! Everyone in the stadium was a lot of fun! I was happy to find out that a lot of cheers are universal such as “Shoot” and “O.k.”. My students had previously taught me the most popular cheer, so I was able to shout along with the rest of the Koreans. Of course, because it is Korea…things had to be a bit quirky-in which case I heard them chant to “Ode to Joy”-not much of a sporting song if you ask me! We were even able to get the wave going and it went around the stadium three times!! A lot of the Korean fans seemed happy to see us enjoying the game, wearing Korea gear, and yelling the Korean cheers. We shared a few high fives with the locals. The game was scoreless until the last ten minutes or so when Kim Chi Goo scored the winning goal! The crowd went nuts. It was a blast!





Getting out of the stadium was quite a mess!! The crowds were ridiculous! Imagin 50,000 + people trying to get into the subway and onto a train at the same time….HORRIBLE!! It made part of the experience though.

I definitely see more soccer games in our future!