Looking Back Fondly on North Korea's World Cup

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 8/11/2010 12:09:00 AM
The people's flag is deepest red
It shrouded oft our martyred dead
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold
Their hearts' blood dyed its every fold

Then raise the scarlet standard high
Within its shade we live and die
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer
We'll keep the red flag flying here

So North Korea's World Cup campaign wasn't really all that great aside from making it to South Africa. After providing the world with the machinations of weird training exercises and hired gun Chinese fans lending them support, the real-life thrashing the team suffered did not go down well at home. Worst of all was the 7-0 whipping at the hands of Portugal. Coming home, there was allegedly a spectacle of the team being given a lengthy tongue-lashing from all comers for failing in the "ideological struggle" against decadent capitalist interlopers (presumably not steeped in the ways of juche). The poor coach was said to have to endure his players denouncing his efforts.

Or was it really that bad? I have long tried to find a clip I could embed of the spoof clip above from the BBC. While the socialist anthem "The Red Flag" (recognizable as "O Tannenbaum" or "O Christmas Tree" to decadent bourgeoisie) plays in the background, the scoreline of the Brazil v North Korea is spoofed to show a victory for the latter. Enjoy, I guess. Don't these guys get it that market socialism's all the rage nowadays?