Opinion | Pyongyang away an unforgettable experience even in defeat – hopefully Hong Kong won’t fare as badly

They call football the world game and I’d have to agree. I’ve been fortunate enough to have played games in some exotic destinations and against some diverse opposition. Beach soccer on Copacabana during the 2014 World Cup, a swamp soccer tournament in a muddy pool in the shadow of the Bird’s Nest, and an early morning kickaround with the Chinatown Soccer Club in the New York City snow would count among them, as would playing with child amputees on a dust patch in Cambodia or being schooled by the Irish Paralympic team ahead of the Beijing Games. But none of them compared to playing in the North Korean National Stadium.

That’s exactly what Hong Kong have to look forward to on March 27 when they visit Pyongyang with a place at the Asian Cup on the line. The stakes are high for both sides: win and they are through to next year’s tournament in the UAE in January.

The atmosphere is sure to be volatile at the 50,000-seater Kim Il-sung Stadium; the same venue was the scene for a riot in 2005 when the hosts faced Iran in a qualifying game for the 2006 World Cup in Germany and fans reacted badly to being denied a penalty.

The scene could not have been more different across the city four years later when the Chaoyang Park Rangers – a ragtag bunch of Beijing-based, expatriate and very amateur footballers, myself among them – played a team of North Koreans in the 30,000-seat Yanggakdo Stadium. Not because it was a smaller capacity or infinitely lower stakes but because there was not one supporter in the stands.

Not many from Hong Kong will be in the stands on March 27 either. Koryo Tours is organising the only trip to the game and it said one Hongkonger has booked among a handful of foreign tourists. There will be no press in attendance and the game will not be televised.

That’s par for the course in a country where the state’s propaganda machine is such that Kim Jong-il notched 11 holes-in-one in his first ever round of golf – and the North Korean team were shown to win the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, rather than going out in the group stages bottom of their group and on the wrong end of three defeats.

On the ground and in the ground, North Korea was a different story to the media’s representation. Although, that’s not to say it was without incident. Starting with a three-hour wait on the tarmac of Beijing Capital Airport in an aeroplane with no air-conditioning – not the last time that some of the party would get hot under the collar.