World Cup Notes

This evening, perennial favorites Brazil, the guys most likely to make the beautiful game actually beautiful, walked onto the field with the upstart team from.... the People's Democratic Republic of Korea (and coach Kim Jong-hun doesn't like it when you call them Norks). The stage was set by the fact that one player, Jong Tae-se, cried during the Democratic People's Republic of Korea national anthem. Not being well-versed in the subtleties of Asian soccer, it cast a terrifying pall over the game. The outcome of the match was simply assumed, yet after the first half, neither the Brazilian nor the Korean Democratic People's Republic has scored. The word that English, ahem, football commentators use, "inspired," (or should I put the comma on the other side of the quotation marks, to really run with the joke?) was simply not frequently used. It seemed like the Brazilians were sitting and waiting for the perfect moment (which they found in the second half, on a goal that seemed to defy the laws of physics), while the Democratic Korean People's Republic aggressively did all they could to simply survive.

That terrifying pall loaded every decision and any analysis. Did the Brazilians relax in the first half, so as not to humiliate the People's Republic of Democratic Korea? They played so much better in the second half. Or maybe they just needed a chance to warm up against an inferior opponent in their first game. When Ri Jun-Il had the paramedics on the field as he stretched his hamstring, was it due to the 40°F in the South African winter, or was it a chance to escape? After the late goal by Ji Yun-nam, were Tae-se's sprints faster because of the chance of a draw, or because of his previous behavior? Emotions race ahead of rationality -- it's as though we were talking about something as inconsequential as sports!

In the end, the underdogs lost. But, uncommonly in the sport, no player from the Korean Republic of Democratic Republicans ever rolled around after a foul, looking for a sympathetic referee. It would be unseemly. There are good men north of the DMZ. Hopefully, some of them got a ticket to Johannesburg, and, if we are really lucky, there will be more stories to tell.