With an absolute full, huge expectation and resounding protests, the unified ice hockey team of the two Koreas played their first match on Sunday before the Olympic Games, a historic event that seeks to bring two countries at war.
The Seonhak Stadium in Incheon (west of Seoul) hosted the only friendly match before the PyeongChang Games, in which the inter-Korean squad lost 3-1 to Sweden, although the result was not important.
His debut has raised enormous expectations for the symbolic that results for two countries divided since 1945, later involved in a fratricidal war that ended with a ceasefire (not a peace treaty) and now engulfed in a deep crisis on account of the program North Korean nuclear
The only precedent, in 1991
Also because an inter-Korean team did not contest an international match since June 1991, when unified Korea fell to Brazil in the U20 World Cup in Portugal .
The Das Antas Stadium in Oporto where it was played does not even exist anymore and the top scorer of that match, a Giovane Elber at that time almost adolescent, has been retired for more than ten years after completing a stellar career at Bayern Munich.
Now, almost 27 years later, the two Koreas return to play together thanks to the agreements reached in January between the two countries to achieve North Korean participation in the Winter Games that are held in the South Korean county of PyeongChang from February 9.
North Korean coldness
But neither Pak Chol-ho, a technician who has traveled to the South with the 12 North Korean players of the unified team, nor Jong Su-hyon , one of the northerners who participated, seemed to show enthusiasm in this regard.
At the post-match press conference they did not accept questions and left the room after saying that the unified team "can play well if it is used to the full" , in a sample that the North Korean regime is willing to limit the exposure of the team to the maximum. its athletes to the media during the Games.
Division of opinions in Seoul
But since this is a happy day, I'm sure they'll play well even if they lose, "said Ew Kwon Soon-young, a young woman who came from Seoul to watch the match.
In contrast, about 200 conservative protesters gathered outside the stadium to protest the creation of the team.
According to the polls, many South Koreans are unhappy with the decision of the government of the South Korean liberal president , Moon Jae-in, to propose the creation of the team, which they consider to give publicity to the North Korean regime.
" They have banned our flag and our anthem (before the start it sounded the" Arirang ", the traditional Korean song par excellence) and we are the hosts.
His words are drowned out by the noisy slogans of his colleagues, whose megaphone in hand calls the North Korean leader , Kim Jong-un, a "bastard."
Out of control"
For her part, the coach of the unified team, the American Sarah Murray, once again expressed her dissatisfaction with the abrupt intergovernmental decision to form the team just one month before the Olympics, insisting that she has "no control over this." "
In any case, the Seoul government is convinced that North Korean participation in PyeongChang 2018, where both countries will also parade together at the inauguration , can help to reduce tension and facilitate rapprochement.
