{"id":7998,"date":"2026-04-10T02:01:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T02:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/10\/how-a-south-korean-helped-pave-the-way-for-north-koreas-soccer-success-nk-news\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T02:01:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T02:01:28","slug":"how-a-south-korean-helped-pave-the-way-for-north-koreas-soccer-success-nk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/10\/how-a-south-korean-helped-pave-the-way-for-north-koreas-soccer-success-nk-news\/","title":{"rendered":"How a South Korean helped pave the way for North Korea\u2019s soccer success &#8211; NK News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Get behind the headlines<br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">North Korea\u2019s women\u2019s soccer teams have been on a tear in recent years.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Youth squads have won the under-17 World Cup twice and the under-20 World Cup once. The national team had a mixed run at the recent Asian Football Confederation tournament but still qualified for the Women\u2019s World Cup in Brazil next year. All of this success has raised questions about how a small, economically weak country of 25 million has become such a dominant soccer force.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">North Korea\u2019s women\u2019s soccer teams have been on a tear in recent years.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Youth squads have won the under-17 World Cup twice and the under-20 World Cup once. The national team had a mixed run at the recent Asian Football Confederation tournament but still qualified for the Women\u2019s World Cup in Brazil next year. All of this success has raised questions about how a small, economically weak country of 25 million has become such a dominant soccer force.<\/span><br \/>\u00a9 Korea Risk Group. All rights reserved.<br \/> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNo part of this content may be reproduced, distributed, or used for \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcommercial purposes without prior written permission from Korea Risk Group. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<br \/>Get the Daily Update<br \/>Please check your inbox, for an email we just sent you, and <b>click on<\/b> the confirmation message in it to get subscribed to our <b>Daily News<\/b> Update.<br \/><a style=\"display: block;\" role=\"button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nknews.org\/pro\/mobile-apps\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-track-content=\"\" data-content-name=\"Sidebar Ad\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-fluid alignnone wp-image-866954 size-large\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" alt=\"Never miss a beat. Try the new mobile app.\" data-content-piece=\"Try the new mobile app (Ver. 2)\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/assets.korearisk.com\/uploads\/2024\/03\/mobile-app-ad-2.png\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-fluid alignnone wp-image-866954 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.korearisk.com\/uploads\/2024\/03\/mobile-app-ad-2.png\" alt=\"Never miss a beat. Try the new mobile app.\" data-content-piece=\"Try the new mobile app (Ver. 2)\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><br \/>Yong Ja Hong is a doctoral candidate in North Korean society, culture and media at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. She also holds a master&#8217;s in North Korean studies and a bachelor&#8217;s in unification, diplomacy and security from Korea University. Her primary research area is DPRK athletics.  <br \/>Specialist news and analysis, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t<br \/> research tools, and unique data sets \t\t\t\t\t\t<br \/>Internet Explorer is not compatible with this website. 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The national team had a mixed run at the recent Asian Football Confederation tournament but still qualified for the Women\u2019s World Cup in Brazil next [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}