Born and raised in Japan, three North Korean soccer players expect boos from the home crowd in a match that comes less than two weeks after the latest North Korean test missile splashed into the Sea of Japan.
An Byong-jun, Kim Song-gi and Lee Yong-jick, who play for J-League division 2 sides, are to represent North Korea when they take on Japan in Tokyo today in the final round of the East Asian Football Federation E-1 Football Championship.
The tournament is being held with the world still on edge after the North heightened alarm in South Korea, Japan and the US by testing an intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday last week that appeared to demonstrate increasing range.
North Korea test-fired missiles over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido twice earlier this year and has threatened to sink Japan into the sea with a nuclear bomb.
Unsurprisingly, Kim, a 29-year-old central defender, who hails from Hyogo Prefecture in western Japan and plays for Machida Zelvia in Tokyo, expects a hostile reception from Japanese supporters.
“Bring on the booing,” Kim said. “Being booed actually gets me fired up. I was brought up that way and it doesn’t really bother me.”
He is eager to avenge a one-nil loss when he first played against Japan for North Korea six years ago.
Kim, An and Lee all took up soccer when they were children attending Pyongyang-affiliated schools in Japan and saw playing as a North Korean international as the path to the highest level.
“Soccer was all I thought about when I was a kid and it was my dream to play for North Korea,” Kim said. “My biggest goal now is to go to the World Cup.”
Japanese nationality is inherited through parents, not place of birth, meaning the three players of North Korean descent are considered foreigners and ineligible to play for Japan’s national team.
The players’ status as permanent residents in Japan is a throwback to the complex and conflicted relationship between the countries.
Many Koreans were forced to move to Japan during its occupation of the Korean Peninsula before and during World War II, and suffered discrimination.
They and their descendants are now eligible to become naturalized Japanese citizens, but many are loath to do so, because that would involve giving up their Korean nationality and suffering a perceived loss of cultural identity.
There were about 339,000 people with special permanent resident status — mostly those of Taiwanese or Korean ancestry — living in Japan last year, government data showed.
“I’ve never thought of taking Japanese citizenship,” Kim said. “My soul is 100 percent North Korean.”
Lee, a 26-year-old native of Osaka, Japan, playing his first match against Japan, said he was not sure how the fans would react, adding that the team had expected boos when they played in South Korea, but received applause instead.
“It’s complicated,” said the Kamatamare Sanuki defender, who switches to midfield for North Korea. “I hope we’re treated the same as other teams that play against Japan. To be honest I hope we don’t get booed.”
Regarding political tensions, he said that things might seem bad looking only at the news in Japan, but that he and his teammates had also seen a good side to North Korea on their trips to Pyongyang, on school trips and for training camp.
An, who is also to be playing his first match against Japan, said he was looking forward to playing in his hometown, Tokyo, and expected a good turnout from ethnic Korean fans.
He said he had a lot of J-League friends on the Japanese squad with whom he exchanges text messages and he was looking forward to a good match, regardless of international tensions.
“Soccer’s great, because teams can play fair and square and those kind of politics don’t matter,” the 27-year-old Roasso Kumamoto forward said. “All I want to do is go out and represent my country as a soccer player.”
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