North, South Korea women face off on Pyongyang football field
South Korea’s flag flew and its anthem sounded in Pyongyang on Friday as its women’s football team played out a 1-1 draw with their neighbours, in the first ever competitive soccer match between the two countries hosted by the North.
The North was hosting a Group B qualifier for the Asian Football Confederation Women’s Asian Cup .
The two Koreas are technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, and relations have only plunged recently.
Seoul demanded security guarantees for the players before the trip was approved.
A packed crowd at the Kim Il Sung stadium stood to hear the South Korean national song in respectful silence, before belting out the North’s.
The match came as the North’s nuclear ambitions top the agenda at a meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping after Pyongyang’s latest missile launch this week.
The North, who had home advantage and are ranked 10th in the world by FIFA to the South’s 17th, and were favourites to win in Pyongyang.
But a missed penalty early on proved costly. Exchanges were even in the first half, until the North’s forward Sung Hyang-Sim was put through in injury time, rounded the keeper and slotted the ball past the last defender’s despairing lunge.
They were then stunned into silence in the 76th minute when Jang Seul-Gi netted the equaliser in a goalmouth scramble.
Sporting links “have eased anxieties during times of escalating tensions” said Michael Spavor, director of Paektu Culture Exchange, which facilitates exchanges in multiple fields with the North.
Koreans on either side of the border tend to back each other’s teams when they play other countries.
Two gymnasts from the North and South posed for a selfie at the Rio Olympics last year and the image instantly went viral, symbolising hopes for closer ties. AFP