Yet it was not the game that haunted me but the expressionless faces of those North Korean fans around me, all of them male. Clad in red jackets and hats, they appeared to be in their 40s and 50s (they wouldn’t tell me their exact age) with uniformly dark and haggard faces. Seated a few seats away from them were two younger men with healthier complexions who appeared to be their minders. They did not answer my questions, but this was how minders looked in my trips to North Korea, and they ordered the fans where to sit. Surrounded by overly exuberant, vuvuzela-blowing Portuguese fans adorned in bright green and yellow, this group appeared strangely out of place, perfunctorily waving miniature flags with the restraint of soldiers.

Although my source told me that the group consisted of migrant bronze workers who had arrived here from Namibia on a 24-hour-long bus ride, the three I spoke to during halftime claimed that they came from Pyongyang via Beijing. One of them said that his team will certainly proceed onto the next round with their “Great General,” Kim Jong-il, leading the way. Another insisted that if the two Koreas came here as one, no team in the world could beat them. Unification, he said, was the key, and we, the Koreans, must all hope for one. I tried to speak to them further, but they looked away.