Portugal Breaks North Korea's Sad Spirit
7-0 is a crushing blow to any national team, and North Korea is no ordinary national team. So this isn't a typical World Cup match. It's more reminiscent to me, honestly, of a Cold War Olympics clash. Except, here, the tone carries a wry irony that was never present in the '80s -- and a deeper underlying sadness that we could hardly muster for the proud, punishing Soviets of the Ivan Drago era.
Here, with North Korea, we see a regime so ruthlessly disciplined and fanatically controlled that it has become laughable -- the fake fans in the stands, the invisible phone line from Kim Jong-Il to the NoKo coach. But we remember what happened to the '66 team, and beneath the jokes about this year's team going back to the salt mines there's a glum recognition that North Korea is simply a tragedy.
Oftentimes, the commercial spectacle surrounding the World Cup overdramatizes the event, making regular men look like phony superheroes. But today, the World Cup dramatized the North Korean team in the most powerful and authoritative way possible -- it simply displayed their humanity. The same gasps of disbelief. The same grimaces of frustration. The same looks of exhaustion. For ninety minutes, the North Koreans looked more like people than like North Koreans. To see the moment when the Portuguese assault reduced them back to mere North Koreans -- people whose master would be very displeased -- well, I don't relish that moment at all. It's a humbling, sad reminder: not just of the what of freedom, but the why.
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Re: Portugal Breaks North Korea's Sad Spirit
Right. I mean, Wayne Rooney can complain about English fans' response to their lousy play, but, well, there's only one fan that counts for the North Korean team.
May '10
Re: Portugal Breaks North Korea's Sad Spirit
Maybe it's best just to look at those players as martyrs--humiliated on the field and facing terrible trials once home, but all in the service of a great cause: the humiliation of an pathetic decrepit monster before his subjects and the world.
May '10
Re: Portugal Breaks North Korea's Sad Spirit
The goal keeper and the coach have been handed their one-way ticket to the salt mines, poor chaps.