Several 'football' articles about the NK team have been published this week (one in the Guardian), none of which mention the name of a single NK player, nor even the name of the coach. I can't imagine writing like this about a non-Asian country. At best, it's lazy journalism. Anyway, I think the main attacking threats will be coming from their number 10 Hak Ri (리학) -- she's just 21 years old and has terrific feet; and also Kyong-yong Kim (김경용), who wears number 17 and scored the only goal against Japan at the Asian Games last year. Coach Yu Il Ri will deploy a very athletic and well-trained squad against the Nadeshiko. I'm very much looking forward to it.
Has been the North Korean squad for the matches against Japan anywhere published? I would blame this more on North Korea than the journalists.
The current squad of 22 players for the Olympic qualifiers is known: https://m.football-lineups.com/team/North-Korea/AFC-Womens-Olympic-Qualifying-2024/players And in fact they are the same that played in the EAFF Championship in December, so we even know about their performance. It's not known which of these coach Yu Il Ri will field on Saturday, as indeed it's not known which players Ikeda-san will start. I'm just saying that an article about the NK Women's team should include at least something about the players.
That happens very often unfortunately, it's a mixture of arrogance and a false sense of moral superiority making those journalists think that some teams are not worthy of attention and coverage at all.
https://amp.theguardian.com/football/2024/feb/20/north-korea-womens-football-moving-the-goalposts If you are talking about this article, it’s written by a friend of mine, Alex Bishop, which makes this conversation a bit uncomfortable. He’s lives in Japan and is one of the main writers of the site “the Asian game”. He’s actually a great journalist when it comes to Japanese football both men & women. He’s probably one of the two English speaking journalists I trust when it comes to Nadeshiko or the WE league. I’d recommend you follow his Twitter account. I guess this article isn’t his best work, though I enjoyed it since I don’t have an interest in learning about North Korean players. It’s a good piece if you want to learn the history behind the game in North Korea, which I think is the point of the article. Anyway, don’t discredit him too much, as he’s one of the very few journalists that take the women’s game seriously in Japan. I’d go as far as saying he’s better than most Japanese football journalists.
I'm not targeting Bishop or anyone, I meant in general. This is a bigger issue than one or two journalists, one or two media websites or newspapers, it's part of a wider culture of disparagement against certain teams, clubs, players hiding behind a false sense of superiority. Like for instance Sweden coming to play in Bosnia in the Nations League and 99,9% of articles in Sweden focusing on the bad air quality in winter in the city where the game will be played while not saying a thing about the Bosnian players.
I would add Sung Hyan Sim (no.7) to the mix. She may be set either as left winger (sometimes right winger) or even perhaps as support striker. She is very crafty on technical side and has good awarness of things around her. At 156 cm she isn't the tallest player around but she does compensate that with an outstanding engine (she makes a lots of runs). Think a player that is cross between Miki Ito and Yui Narumiya but with Risa Shimizu engine.
I don't know Alex, he might be a good guy -- at any rate his article was not much worse than the others that have appeared this week in the run-up to the match. I'm a Nadeshiko fan, not a North Korea fan - but I like to know something about our opposition: Who are their best players? What to watch out for? What is the average age of the team? Are they a very young team or a team full of veterans? What has been their recent form? In the case of the piece in the Guardian, despite the fact that he begins by explicitly making this game the context of the article: ..we learn exactly none of these things. Instead we have cut-and-paste descriptions of the team's historical role as an instrument of North Korean state policy. That is true, but what is also true is that these young women are actually real people who deserve not to be characterised as anonymous representatives of an oppressive state by never referring to any of them individually, even once.
Any instrument of communist state policy deserves to be neglected in press and ostracized. Regarding athletic field - crushed, embarassed and humiliated. I hope Nadeshiko Japan can provide that.
The North Korea national team is not an instrument of communist state policy, it's just women playing football. By that same logic and reasoning, Belarus and China's teams are instruments of communist state policy.
My bad but yeah you get what I mean. I don't mind finding out more about the North Korean players, politics aside.
I may be busy today helping my parents. If someone can record the match and upload it later on youtube or google drive for download, I would appreciate it. Alternatively I'll keep my fingers crossed for some good soul to stream it live and in good quality (better than turnip stream) on youtube
If you are referring to the game vs North Korea, it’s tomorrow. Hopefully that means you can watch it live.
Oh, yes thanks, I forgot it's actually 24th not 23rd... That changes things a bit cuz I should be back at home by then.
I love these mini shows, I just wish they were translated. Japan has a lot of fans around the world, me included, who do not speak a word of Japanese sometimes despite following Japanese football for decades.
you can check geoblocked countries here: https://polsy.org.uk/stuff/ytrestrict.cgi Allowed countries AD - Andorra AF - Afghanistan AO - Angola BE - Belgium BF - Burkina Faso BG - Bulgaria BI - Burundi BJ - Benin BM - Bermuda BN - Brunei Darussalam BT - Bhutan BW - Botswana CA - Canada CD - Congo (Democratic Republic of the) CF - Central African Republic CG - Republic of the Congo CI - Côte d'Ivoire CM - Cameroon CV - Cabo Verde CY - Cyprus CZ - Czech Republic DK - Denmark ER - Eritrea ES - Spain ET - Ethiopia FI - Finland FO - Faroe Islands FR - France GA - Gabon GB - United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland GH - Ghana GI - Gibraltar GL - Greenland GM - Gambia GN - Guinea GQ - Equatorial Guinea GR - Greece GU - Guam GW - Guinea-Bissau HK - Hong Kong HU - Hungary IS - Iceland IT - Italy KE - Kenya KH - Cambodia KM - Comoros KP - North Korea LA - Lao People's Democratic Republic LI - Liechtenstein LR - Liberia LS - Lesotho LU - Luxembourg MC - Monaco MG - Madagascar ML - Mali MP - Northern Mariana Islands MT - Malta MU - Mauritius MW - Malawi MY - Malaysia MZ - Mozambique NA - Namibia NE - Niger NG - Nigeria NL - Netherlands NO - Norway NP - Nepal NZ - New Zealand PH - Philippines PK - Pakistan PL - Poland PR - Puerto Rico PT - Portugal RE - Réunion RO - Romania RW - Rwanda SC - Seychelles SE - Sweden SG - Singapore SH - Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha SK - Slovakia SL - Sierra Leone SM - San Marino SN - Senegal SS - South Sudan ST - Sao Tome and Principe TG - Togo TH - Thailand TR - Turkey TZ - Tanzania, UG - Uganda US - United States of America VA - Vatican City State VI - United States Virgin Islands YT - Mayotte ZA - South Africa ZM - Zambia ZW - Zimbabwe
Hayashi and Momiki nominated for WSL player of the month The nominees for Player of the Month are in! 🌟 @2026honoka 🌟 Khiara Keating🌟 @nicole_m09 🌟 @JordanNobbs8 🌟 @amaliethestrup 🌟 @LeilaOuahabi Vote now: https://t.co/NrWgRBuaqQ pic.twitter.com/gw7NhMf1p3— Barclays Women's Super League (@BarclaysWSL) February 23, 2024
Kumagai and Minami compete in UWCL knowledge and it’s not even close. Also trying to figure out how many languages Kumagai speaks in this 8 minute video.
I would be interested about the complete correct answers to those questions: apart the one about the WCL's winner teams, I am not sure I would be able to come up with the complete lists myself...
Nadeshiko Japan memory refreshing service: "the player from Wolfsburg" will start for Poland against Switzerland (friendly match).