Hong Kong, Seoul
Kim Jong Un led the celebrations, and gamers wept with pleasure, as Asian membership soccer’s latest women’s champions toasted a continental conquest that caps a remarkable run for North Korea’s feminine footballers.
Pyongyang-based Naegohyang Women’s FC lifted the Asian Champions League trophy final month, on enemy soil in South Korea. Their reclusive nation is additionally reigning world champion in under-17s and under-20s women’s soccer.
At a celebratory exhibition match final week within the capital, underneath the watchful eye of the supreme chief, Naegohyang confronted off towards the under-17s workforce, who simply added an Asian Cup to their spectacular array of silverware, trouncing Japan 5-1 within the ultimate.
They have been hailed as “trustworthy women” and “proud daughters of the motherland.”
According to official information company KCNA, the Naegohyang gamers “stressed that the loving care and benevolence of the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un” was “encouraging all of them to more remarkable sports successes.”
Next up for a lot of of those gamers is the senior Women’s World Cup in Brazil. And some pundits are asking if a shot at international glory might be on the playing cards for Kim’s athletes.
Sports-loving Kim has re-committed to creating athletic expertise as a device to advertise North Korea internationally, in keeping with a report by South Korea’s Unification Ministry.
And whereas the nation’s secretive nature makes it exhausting to know precisely what drives its prolific women’s soccer program, NCS has spoken to coaches and gamers who’ve labored with its groups – and lined up towards them – to place collectively an image of how they do it.
When captain Kim Kyong Yong scored the successful objective towards Japan’s Tokyo Verdy in final month’s Champions League ultimate, it was her newest step on a journey that began greater than a decade in the past on the Pyongyang International Football School.
Founded in 2013 to fulfil Kim Jong Un’s sporting ambitions, the elite youth academy has since trained hundreds of girls and boys aged between seven and 17, a lot of whom would signify the nation at worldwide degree, in keeping with state information company KCNA. Among them is Han Kwang Song, a ahead for the boys’s nationwide workforce, who performed for a time in Italy.
Now 24, Kim Kyong Yong is a mannequin product of the extremely managed youth growth system: beginning soccer at 10; representing her nation throughout age grades; turning into a star striker for the senior line-up; and main her membership to continental silverware.
“Although our players still lack experience in senior-level international competitions, they have grown significantly as a team,” Kim mentioned after scooping the Most Valuable Player award on this yr’s Champions League.
“Through this competition, we will work hard to overcome our shortcomings and achieve strong results in future world-class competitions.”
British coach Stephen Constantine, one of some instructors from world governing physique FIFA invited in 2018 to coach coaches in North Korea, famous their gamers’ bodily toughness.
“When you look at the North Korean teams, the thing that impresses you the most is (that they are) very, very aggressive and very, very hard-working,” Constantine, now supervisor of the Rwanda males’s nationwide workforce, advised NCS.
“In some cases, which I thought was a bit extreme, they would have somebody piggyback – run from the goal line to the 18-yard line with this person on their back, drop her, and then sprint to the other box. It was insane.”
The North Korean gamers’ bodily aptitude was clear, however coaches have been conscious of their technical and tactical shortcomings.
Elite academy instructors started translating the most recent sports activities science knowledge and strategies, analysing world-class matches from abroad to enhance their gamers, according to North Korean media.
“Technically they are very good, so they can overpower the majority of the teams in those age groups through pure physicality, technical ability and speed,” mentioned Colin Bell, a former South Korean women’s nationwide workforce supervisor with expertise going through North Korean groups.
Having studied their U20s workforce on the latest Asian Cup, he defined that the North Koreans have been extraordinarily disciplined and mastered enjoying in “simple” sequences.
“It’s not rocket science, but it’s very well executed, and their football IQ is very high for those age groups,” Bell mentioned.
“I watched every player run. They all run with the same style. Honestly. It’s drill, drill, drill from a very early age, and you just cannot compete with them at youth level.”
Rielly Chesna, a defender with Ho Chi Minh City Women’s FC, which misplaced to Naegohyang within the quarter-finals of the Champions League, additionally remarked on the workforce’s easy choreography.
“You could tell they know exactly where they’re supposed to go, and they just flowed. Their passing on the ground and movement was perfect. It was definitely hard to track them,” the American advised NCS.
The gamers have much more of an edge mentally, in keeping with Bell.
“You can just see that it’s not a normal game for them. There’s a certain amount of desperation in the way they play. They have to be successful, and you can sense it,” he mentioned.
“Obviously, the way the country is probably governed, it leads to that. Everybody knows that there’ll be certain parts that are doing okay, but a large part of the society in North Korea is very poor. So, sport is a really big option for these young girls to help their families for the future. That’s how they play. You cannot simulate the desperation.”
Long-time FIFA coach Kwok Ka-ming, who educated coaches in North Korea 4 occasions between 2013 and 2019, added: “At youth level in Europe the countries are not so concentrated on the results, but developing players. In Asia, they need to get results to be told they are good.”
“If you’re a champion, Kim Jong Un will meet you at the airport,” mentioned the Hong Konger. “This is critical.”
Attentions will quickly flip to subsequent yr’s Women’s World Cup in Brazil, the senior workforce’s return to the worldwide stage after years within the sporting wilderness.
After successful the Women’s Asian Cup thrice in the course of the early 2000s, issues began to unravel on the 2011 World Cup, the place 5 gamers failed doping exams, which they blamed on traditional Chinese medicine that used deer musk glands, to treat the effects of being struck by lightning. They were fined and banned from participating in the following World Cup and qualifiers, halting any progress.
Then the team, for unknown reasons, withdrew from the East Asian championship in 2019, and missed the 2023 World Cup, citing the Covid-19 pandemic.
But they reemerged early this yr with a brand new head coach and practically half the squad changed with recent faces, to safe its spot on the international showpiece.
They carried out strongly at this yr’s Women’s Asian Cup however misplaced a good quarter-final to hosts Australia, whose coach Joe Montemurro even acknowledged that the North Koreans have been “the best team in the tournament. They play great football.”
As North Korea continues to pad its senior workforce with confirmed youth workforce graduates, its prospects in women’s soccer seem vivid, mentioned Gina Bagnulo, a contract journalist masking Asian soccer.
“People who were standout performers in their squad, or at least start to make their debut with the AFC Women’s Asian Cup, a lot of them were just fresh out of the underage system, so we’re seeing that transpire,” Bagnulo mentioned, noting Kim Kyong Yong as a participant to observe.
With younger up-and-comers more likely to be included within the roster for the upcoming World Cup, the query is: can the seniors reproduce their juniors’ success towards the world’s finest? There’s nonetheless a lot to show.
“Youth football has been a big advantage so it will be very interesting to see how they fare next year,” Bell mentioned. “Are they able at some stage to dominate senior national football? I’m not sure if they can.”
Bagnulo famous that the competitors can be fierce.
“We’re talking about the likes of, you know, Brazil, who are hosting, the USA, even… But I do think that they’ll probably win a few matches at least, even if it’s just in the group stage.”