{"id":120200,"date":"2026-05-26T10:23:48","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=120200"},"modified":"2026-05-26T10:23:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:23:48","slug":"cheering-for-two-koreas-how-south-koreans-welcomed-north-in-football-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=120200","title":{"rendered":"Cheering for two Koreas: How South Koreans welcomed North in football clash"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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\u2019t happened in South Korea in nearly eight years: a North Korean sports team competing for a trophy on the South\u2019s soil. \u201cWe are still one people. We are compatriots,\u201d Choi, a woman in her 50s who travelled from Ansan city, told NK News at the stadium about 20 miles south of Seoul. \u201cI want them to leave with that kind of warm feeling.\u201d Choi was one of roughly 5,760 spectators who gathered at the stadium as Suwon FC Women hosted the Pyongyang-based Naegohyang Women\u2019s Football Club in the 2026 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women\u2019s Champions League semifinals \u2014 the first inter-Korean women\u2019s 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\u2019s captain Kim Kyong-yong pounced on Suwon\u2019s defensive error in the second half to score the winn<\/div>\n
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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\u2019t happened in South Korea in nearly eight years: a… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}