Japan national anthem booed in N Korea at World Cup qualifier

The gamesmanship begins..................

This is a hilarious article: 'the hermit state,' 'the hermit nation,' 'Dour local officials',' confiscating 'bananas' and 3 suspicious power outages at the airport.

:-)

The communist regime is widely despised in Japan,

as evidenced by the Japanese reluctance to spend money at love hotels and pachinko parlors.

Funny the Japanese are upset by some booing (it is a sporting event afterall, not like the sanitized event here), yet doesnt mind stooping to some childish name calling. What a great reporter calling another nation "hermits" etc etc, wonder how the Japanese would feel if a reporter called Japanese a bunch of mindless lemmings? Imagine the outrage....

They shouldn't have matches in North Korea until they stop resorting to these childish tactics.

Only 150 tickets for J-fans, no flags, no horns, no singing to avoid "conflict with AUTHORITIES", a 4 hour airport delay, no laughing, gum/banana/noodle confiscation, etc.

What a bunch of kooks.

Korea wins. But lots of fouls, as I predicted, haha.

They should have gotten back on the plane, given north Korea the finger and cancelled the game. Why does anyone travel to this $hithole country in the first place? Kim Jong Il is the poster boy for birth control and doesn't deserve to have his mindless minions compete against real athletes!

can someone tell me the score please?

1-0, for the hermits.

NuckinFutz

Kim Jong Il is the poster boy for birth control and doesn't deserve to have his mindless minions compete against real athletes!

I guess the real athletes got a lesson in how to play soccer by the mindless minions hey

I know a lot of Japanese here who would boo it if they would not get fired for doing so. What's the big deal?

Instead of watching the game telecast, I'd rather have a Google Earth nighttime photo: a sea of darkness surrounding the kleig lights in Pyongyang.

Japan should forfeit any game with that murderous regime in future, whether home or abroad.

Japan should forfeit any game with that murderous regime in future, whether home or abroad.

The Japanese players did themselves and their nation proud by showing up and doing their best - to no avail in terms of the on-field score. A lot of the extreme right-wingers here will probably hate on the Blue Samurai © for going there, but boo to them. I mean, where do you draw the line? Should the likes of Australia and Japan refuse to play against their fellow Asians North Korea, Burma (Myanmar), Iran, China, Vietnam etc etc in their Confederation simply because they disagree with their awful regimes? I think not...

I can't help but wonder how many have been executed on the very same stadium.

Good. All national anthems should be booed!

Continue the source. All those NK robots have no choice. USB wants all anthems booed. No respect for oneself is a dangerous, "slippery slope." One world, one economy? Good luck as long as one is at the top of the food chain.

@NuckinFutz

No doubt! This match for the North Koreans was probably a life and death match for them with all the nation putting their hope in these players. They probably had to do whatever to win otherwise, gulag or labor camps, probably why the tension was so high, for them it was nut crunch time. I mean, come on, no bananas, no laughing, no cheering...are these people for real???! F*****g losers!

What surprises me is that people seemed surprised by what happen.

If I were a member of the Japanese squad, I would have arranged to come down with appendicitis one day before departure to Pyongyang. I heard even the Chinese team got roughed up. People living under the thumb of a despot have no other outlet but to feign nationalism and take it out on foreign teams. The number of riot police on hand to keep order probably equalled the number of people who came to watch the match.

Funny the Japanese are upset by some booing (it is a sporting event afterall, not like the sanitized event here), yet doesnt mind stooping to some childish name calling. What a great reporter calling another nation "hermits" etc etc, wonder how the Japanese would feel if a reporter called Japanese a bunch of mindless lemmings? Imagine the outrage....

Spidapig - "Hermit Kingdom" has been used to describe North Korea by the international press for decades now. And how do you even know that this report was written by a Japanese journalist?

Agree with hoserfella, @Spidapig24, in case you dind't know, Japanese reporters write in Japanese, about 99.9999% of the time. this article is written by someone who is not Japanese most likely, and posted by JT, they are mostly not Japanese either.

Dour local officials warned players when they laughed, and confiscated items including bananas, chewing gum, and instant noodles

Funny, Dour Japanese officials warned me sternly and detained me for about three hours and confiscated such things as Vicks nasal spray and Forumal 44 caugh syrup.

hoserfella.

Spidapig - "Hermit Kingdom" has been used to describe North Korea by the international press for decades now.

Fair point.

And how do you even know that this report was written by a Japanese journalist?

Because it was submitted to AFP by the Tokyo office so l would say that its a fair bet wouldnt you.

Both Koreas produce rabid nationalists. This reminds me of the 88 Olympics and the korean guards at ringside of one of the boxing matches removing their official Olympic jackets to join in a fight, a bunch of locals attacking a ref (I think he was an Aus or a Kiwi) who ruled against the Korean boxer.

Because it was submitted to AFP by the Tokyo office so l would say that its a fair bet wouldnt you.

Spidapig - no I wouldn't. I don't see any mention of the story being submitted by a "Tokyo office" and if it was, does that nescessarily mean the journalist is Japanese? Are all AP reporters natives of the country they are reporting from? No..

Hey - at least the game didn't have to be abandoned due to violence in the stadium. We will leave that to those English and Irish mob!

Back on topic please.

For those who watched the game via TV ... did anything appear strange to you concerning the North Korean soccer fans? The whole thing to me seemed to be "stage arranged" ... that is, these "fans" were playing a role that was "written" for them by the North Korean propaganda script writers. The place was packed ... yet nothing seemed real. Perhaps it's a good thing Kim-san's team came out on the winning side. Otherwise, wonder how that audience would have reacted?

They shoud not allow North KOREA IN TO SPORT. THE PLAYERS WILL BE TORTURED IF THEY LOSE.

Bravo to the Noth Korean team.

All these negative comments about how bad N Korea is and how badly they behaved booing the Japanese national anthem etc. Yet all these detractors not one was a good enough sport to say congrats on the win N Korea. Quick to whine about the crowd etc but not actually big enough to say well done on the win look like most posters are as bad as those they begrudge. Oh and yeah bring on the thumbs down guess the truth hurts though

Spidapig, if everything was equally fair, I would have given my congrats to the NKorea team. However, with the treatment that the J-team got at the airport, the J fans pretty much on lockdown in the stands, and other unfair treatment the team probably got from Nkorea that hasn't been reported, and all the yellow cards given during the game, it seems hard for me to congratulate the NKoreans for winning.

I hate use of politics in football <www.football-bear.com>

There's a lot more to say about this game and this complicated relationship than is covered there. Needless to say, everyone on the Japan team just seemed very happy to get through the game and away safely.

In any case, the result doesn't matter to either team in the scheme of the competition. Japan are already through to the next qualifying group, and North Korea are already mathematically unable to progress. The team having the last laugh is certainly Japan.

This article is not about the game or who won, or congratulations.

It's about the booing of an opponent's national anthem, by 50,000 people in unison.

Natural? Spontaneous? Stress relief? Forced? Nationalistic? Religious? Innocently free of international norms and expectations on how to behave in public?

To tell the truth, the Japanese National Anthem is soul-crackingly slow. Needs a bit more zing to it....

who cares about this game anyways? japan is the best asian team!

The players are professionals, if they are rattled by opposition players booing their anthem then they really don't deserve to be in the high pressure international sports world.

Way back in 2005, the Australian team were kept awake at night in their hotel by Uruguayans trying to disturb them for the match the next day, they were also spat on and the Australian anthem booed.

Naturally, when it came time to play in Sydney, we booed the hell out of the Uruguay anthem back. Its all part of the give and take of sports competition, its a high pressure and highly emotionally charged world. Booing of an anthem is not something I condone for every time, but its hardly the end of the world if it does happen.

I can't help but wonder how many have been executed on the very same stadium

If you think the plays are well executed...!

Zichi, I think the final score was NK 1 and Japan 0.