I feel bad about disappointing Jonathon and Fishrush with my lack of Worldy Cuppy Updates from ball-kicking ground zero, but I really haven’t come across anything that was sufficiently out there enough for me to report (Me, not journalist be!) in the last couple of days.
Until the Korea-Poland game tonight, which was quite handily won by Korea. It was Korea’s first-ever World Cup win, and so a deeply emotional moment for the million or more middle-aged Korean women who have been instantly and miraculously transformed into rabid soccer fans, and will continue to be so until the Korean team is knocked out of the running, at which time they will spit and turn, with disgust and resignation writ large on their faces, back to their large plastic tubs of kimchi, muttering imprecations about how that foreigner coach Hiddink failed them.
But right now, the fever is up, and there are literally millions of women-of-a-certain-age in this country who would slip ol’ Coach Hiddink the tongue in a split second in an instant if they thought it would help The Team, butter-smell or no butter-smell.
The little bit of Korea-insider intelligence I thought I’d pass on this evening is this : it’s been reported that in the wee wee hours of this morning, outside the hotel at Haeundae Beach in Busan where the Polish team is staying, a large crowd gathered. A large crowd of Korean fans. They proceeded to make a large noise. In order to deliberately deprive the Polish team of their beauty sleep.
I’m not sure if this is standard procedure or not, for the supporters of the home teams in host countries to try to disturb the sleep of competitors in hopes of a small advantage for the home team. I don’t follow this soccer stuff very much.
Congratulations to the Korean team. They looked pretty well-rested out there.
Category:
Korea-related