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bradley headstone - drawn to any world cup disgrace

Ho ho ho, those Koreans eh!

Posted: June 16th 2010
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One feature of the coverage of the World Cup so far is the ‘amusing’ reports filed from North Korea press conferences. Thus far it’s allowed even the more reasonable of the breed to slip into lazy generalisms and display a casual racism that most would consider the territory of the Daily Mail alone.

This built to a crescendo during the television coverage of their game against the might of Brazil. Despite the tears of North Korea’s Wayne Rooney, Jong Tae-se, the commentators preferred to trot out the latest rumours of TVs blacked out across North Korea and even suggested that the few Korean fans in the stadium were in fact Chinese actors paid to cheer them on. Tiresome!

What they could have concentrated on was a pretty decent, disciplined performance by a team who would not have faced anything like a South American giant too often. Their verve, tactical nous and particularly the work rate of the aforementioned Jong was admirable and until Maicon sliced his cross home, Brazil were looking decidedly rattled.

The Koreans couldn’t keep the pace going and eventually a Robinho pass sized gap opened up and his fellow City reject, Elano slotted home. I’d have been surprised if they’d given up and I wasn’t disappointed. The look on Dunga’s face, as it disappeared into his huge velour roll neck, when Ji Yun-nam slammed the ball past Cesar was a picture.

Portugal and Cote d’Ivoire will not have enjoyed the Korean display but I’m sure they’ll be chuckling away at the reports to come from the Korean press conferences.