North Korea Fail to Show for Friendly Against Oman

North Korea failed to show for a scheduled friendly with Oman on September 5. A letter to the Oman Football Association explained that several of the North Korean players had been affected by food poisoning, while training in China. During the qualification process, North Korea accused South Korea of poisoning its food before their game in Seoul. The food poisoning excuse may be part of plans to keep North Korea out of sight before the Finals in 2010, banking on the tactic that the less the world knows about the DPRK game and players, the more likely the DPRK is set to shock and stun unprepared opponents. Recently, in a rare interview with FIFA, national team coach Kim Jong Hun, sounded confident. “We will prove that we are not going to the World Cup just to make up the numbers. We are confident about competing against the best teams.”

Hong Hyon-Chol, coached the DPRK in the 1990’s, and he explained the tactics that North Korea will deploy in the Finals, “While the global trend is attacking football, we stick to our largely defensive strategy with the 5-4-1 formation, mainly because this is the tactic which best suits our players.”

North Korea will enter South Africa with more defenders than any other team, maybe half of the entire squad. But can they score goals? Many expect the DPRK to vanish after the first round. I doubt it.