Soccer, soccer, soccer

Here in Korea I went to a big soccer match for the first time in my life. I've been to the World Cup Stadium two times now and it feels like we're going there all the time... :)

The first time was when we went to see Seoul - Osaka match. We just wanted to see the stadium and have fun, so our concentration wasn't on the match all the time. We had a good time, but unfortunately the victory went to Osaka.

World Cup Stadium.

The stadium was pretty empty but we could sit very near to the field.


FC Seoul Fans :)

We lost...

A lot bigger match though was between South Korea and North Korea. We definately wanted to be there to see this historic match.

This time the stadium was almost full (i heard from someone that it was 48 000 out of 68 000) of South Korea fans. I didn't see any North Korea fans there. Before the match we were speculating if North Korea would send in people to cheer their team, but it didn't.

The game was very even. Neither of the teams was clearly better than other. And I figured: how does one even beat or win itself. They should be one team, right.

In the FIFA 2010 Asian World Cup Qualifiers South Korea plays in group B, that consists of all the happy countries including North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Iran. How nice! The games will probably do miracles to the relations between them. :)

Even more interesting made the situation the fact that North Korea is possibly launching a long-range missile in the coming days. Does the result of the match change the coordinates of the missile? Hope not. As one of the exchange students said, it's a long-range missile, we're fine cause we're so close.

At the stadium again. This time it was way cooler with all the enthusiastic fans around. Some old Korean soccer fan gave us Korean flags and taught us how to cheer the team in Korean.

A pre-game show.

South Korea fans!


National anthems being played.

Taehanminguk! That is what you scream when cheering South Korea. It is the full name of the country in Korean.

This time there were lots of people at the game. We were doing waves and everything :)

South Korea scored a goal in the last minutes. The player making the goal was Kim Chi Woo. Go kimchi!

After the game and the victory we had so nice an evening that we were still smiling even on the next day having breakfast at 5 in the evening... :)