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Choi Seon-hee sat in the pouring rain at the Suwon Sports Complex on a cold Wednesday evening, watching something that hadn’t happened in South Korea in nearly eight years: a North Korean sports team competing for a trophy on the South’s soil. “We are still one people. We are compatriots,” Choi, a woman in her 50s who travelled from Ansan city, told NK News at the stadium about 20 miles south of Seoul. “I want them to leave with that kind of warm feeling.” Choi was one of roughly 5,760 spectators who gathered at the stadium as Suwon FC Women hosted the Pyongyang-based Naegohyang Women’s Football Club in the 2026 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women’s Champions League semifinals — the first inter-Korean women’s club football match held in the South. At the half-filled stadium, the visiting team won 2-1 in a match that prompted speculation over whether football could become an alternate channel for inter-Korean contact, despite deepening political tensions. Naegohyang’s captain Kim Kyong-yong pounced on Suwon’s defensive error in the second half to score the winn