Communists, Coups, and the Beautiful Game

Honduras bears the weight of a country; North Korea likes flying horses.

For me, the World Cup is just as much about who doesn’t belong as who does. This is not to say that any of the teams are undeserving, but a few were certainly shock qualifiers and/or infrequent visitors of the game’s biggest stage. (If anyone wants to make an argument for an undeserving squad, my vote goes to our dear hosts, who not only gained automatic entry while perched atop the throne of mediocrity with a FIFA World Ranking of 83, but also introduced to the world Vuvuzelas, those horns from Hell which will be hereupon referred to as The Scourge of the Earth.)

Regardless, there are two teams who are playing in only their second World Cup final – Honduras and North Korea. Since one played Tuesday afternoon and the other’s first match is only hours away, I felt it appropriate to comment on two teams whose stays may be short but still manage to offer compelling stories.

Honduras is a country that has endeared itself greatly to me. They play in CONCACAF, the same governing branch of FIFA as the United States, so we see them twice in each World Cup qualification. Much like Southerners often find themselves cheering for rival SEC conference teams come postseason play, I root for our fellow CONCACAF-ians in their battles against Europeans, South Americans, and the like. So there’s that. While I’ve never been to the country myself, I’ve had both a sibling and good friend go on mission trips to Honduras within the past few years. I understand the plight of the country, which, by all accounts, seems to be populated by good, hard-working, yet extremely unlucky people.

Los Catrachos qualified for the World Cup in 1982, getting drawn into the same group as host Spain. It was a quiet Cup, with two draws and a loss that saw them finish last in their group, only one point away from advancing. Any hopes of a repeat performance were soon dashed, as 1986, 1990, 1994, and 1998 passed without any appearances. 1998 did bring, however, the arrival of Hurricane Mitch, one of the most intense and destructive hurricanes on record. 5,000 people died, $3 billion of property was destroyed, and its president claimed the country’s progress had been set back 50 years. 2002, 2006 – no World Cup.

2010 World Cup qualification was looking promising, with the exception of the fact that it was taking place in the middle of a coup d’etat after Congress overthrew the president. Honduras needed a United States win or tie against Costa Rica to grab the third and final guaranteed CONCACAF spot. Down 2-0, the United States rallied. The stoppage-time equalizer came in the 94^th minute, and from the unlikeliest of sources – Jonathan Bornstein, a defender who is almost unquestionably the worst player to put on a USA uniform in South Africa and whose only apparent qualification seems to be having picked a position where his peers are simply equally if not more incompetent than he. That aside, he can now drink in Honduras for free. Forever.

In a nice twist, Honduras has drawn Spain’s group again. Doing so has made them prohibitive underdogs to advance to the knockout stage. You have to think, though, that nothing can faze them at this point. Not even losing to injury one of their most dangerous players, Carlo Costly, whose father played on the 1982 squad. I’ll certainly be rooting for them to achieve what many believe to be an impossible task.

That a country like Honduras would endear itself to me is something I expected. What I wasn’t expecting, however, was to find myself respecting, and even pulling for North Korea. No such history lesson for that bunch is necessary. Here’s all you need to know: they’re communist, they have nuclear weapons, they censor the shit (ha!) out of everything, and their diminutive “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il claims to have shot 38-under par in his first-ever round of golf, a good 20-25 strokes better than any other human to ever play the game.

They’re actually ranked worse than the Fighting Vuvuzelas, coming in at 105^th in the world. Naturally, I assumed they qualified only due to the fact that, well, they have nuclear weapons. The only other year they qualified was in 1966, a time so far gone that the English team then weren’t choking dogs but instead World Champions.

So when they were drawn into the Group of Death, I was pleasantly surprised. Brazil, Portugal, and the Ivory Coast – two of the three highest-ranked teams in the world, and all three considered soccer powers on some level. As the logic goes, with goal differential being the top tiebreaker, each would need to pummel the North Koreans in order to advance. I was so looking forward to seeing them repeatedly mauled by Brazilian superstars that I even tweeted about it.

Unfortunately, the first half came and went. No goals. Nothing. I began to notice the Koreans fighting, challenging, playing for the win. They were outclassed for sure, but you couldn’t have known it from watching them. It forced me to hearken back to the 2004 Olympics, when I brazenly supported the Iraqi team not because of their government, but because they weren’t their government. Kim Jong-il may lead North Korea, but he doesn’t play for North Korea. They don’t represent or reflect the views of their government any more than our players do us.

And so I found myself cheering when, down 2-0, they found the back of the net against one of the world’s best defenses in the game’s final minutes.

I’ll be doing the same for Honduras.