http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...o-cheer-for-North-Korea-during-World-Cup.html
Chinese actors to cheer for North Korea during World Cup
The North Korean team has qualified for the World Cup for only the second time, and is hoping to replicate the surprise it sprang on the 1966 tournament in England when its team knocked out Italy and reached the quarter finals.
This time, however, the North Koreans have been drawn into a 'group of death’ alongside Brazil, Portugal and the Ivory Coast, and the country’s leaders have appealed for support.
Since virtually no one in North Korea can afford to travel to South Africa, or obtain a visa, the Beijing office of the North Korean Sports Committee has begun to give out tickets to Chinese fans.
So far, a group of around 1,000 Chinese fans, including a group of actors and musicians who have been sent to cheer China in previous World Cup tournaments, will attend the games against Brazil and Portugal to cheer on their North Korean cousins, according to Xinhua, the government-run news agency.
“It is very possible that China will support North Korea in the World Cup,” said Nick Bonner, whose company, Koryo, produced a documentary about the exploits of the 1966 North Korean team and has just released a North Korean football film called Centre Forward. “As Mao Tsetung once said: 'The Chinese and the North Korean are as close as lips and teeth’,” he added.
The North Korean team, which was hugely defensive in its qualification campaign, has already departed for its training camp in Switzerland.
The star of the team is likely to be Hong Yong-jo, a striker who plays for FC Rostow in the Russian Premier League.
Pundits have said the team is likely to defend stolidly and hope to catch teams on the break.
“They train like a military troop. As a result, their stamina is probably the best in the world,” said Taewoon Park, “I’ve just got back from Pyongyang a couple of days ago and the North Koreans I spoke to were acutely aware that they have been picked into a difficult group,” said Mr Bonner.
“But as one North Korean friend told me, they have a saying there: 'Over the mountains, there are mountains’.”