“Normally, when there are 30 shots in the game, the United States takes about 25. Not today!”
It wasn’t just the ESPN commentator who was surprised.
Heather O’Reilly had set the sport’s ultimate goal, dragging the world number one and two-time champion United States to a 2-2 draw in their first match of the 2007 Women’s World Cup.
Still, O’Reilly wasn’t surprised during the scoring. Or how equal the sport used to be. I knew it could be complicated.
Instead, when the general whistle blew, it was the perspective of the American wrestlers, who saw an ignored perspective, rather than a title received, that shocked her.
“I remember North Korea looking disappointed,” O’Reilly says.
“Their body language seemed to say ‘My God, we were so close to defeating the giant.'”
North Korea is the most separated country in the world, a status based on the infallibility of Supreme Kim Jong-un and a deep insecurity from the outside world.
But, despite living requirements clearly lagging behind most alternative countries, North Korea has been one of the most powerful women’s football countries in the world.
After facing the United States in 2007, they were ranked fifth in the world and in the midst of a run of three Asian titles over the course of a decade.
His early life level report is even better. In 2016, they won the U-20 Women’s World Cup, defeating Spain, the United States and France in the knockout rounds. That same year, his under-17 team also won its World Age Cup.
“The 2007 game was challenging, really very difficult,” O’Reilly recalls of his encounter with the North Korean senior team. “It was difficult to take the ball away from them, they were zooming around, very fast.”
However, there was another problem, one that was unique to North Korea.
“It was a cloud of uncertainty,” O’Reilly says. “The film we had on them was very limited, even by the standards of the time.
“Every time we played in North Korea, it was always a mystery.”
The mystery now, after a doping controversy and a four-year absence from world football, can North Korea’s women be a force again?
