SUWON, South Korea - Heavy rain poured down on Suwon Sports Complex on Wednesday evening as hundreds of football fans gathered to watch the first match played by a North Korean sports team on South Korean soil in more than seven years.
North Korea's Naegohyang Women's FC faced South Korea's Suwon FC Women in an Asian Football Confederation Women's Champions League semifinal in Suwon, about 30 kilometers from Seoul, marking the first visit by North Korean athletes to the South since a table tennis delegation in December 2018.
And it was a winning trip for Naegohyang as they beat Suwon 2-1 to advance to the final where they will face Japan's Tokyo Verdy Beleza in the final, scheduled for May 23.
The downpour caused many spectators to leave after the first half, though tickets for the match had sold out quickly, according to Yonhap News Agency.
Among those who stayed throughout the rain was Lee Myung Woo, a 79-year-old who was born in North Korea and came to the South in 1978, for whom the occasion carried a deeply personal meaning.
"It felt like nieces from my hometown were visiting. I came with a joyful heart," said Lee, adding he hoped the event will help ease the frozen state of inter-Korean relations.
Kim Hyung Jun, 30, said he was surprised the North Korean team came at all, given Pyongyang's declaration of the South as a "hostile state."
"I don't think one match will change inter-Korean relations, but if these things build up one by one, exchanges could reopen someday," Kim said, adding that while he hopes for reunification, "a peaceful relationship could also be a way forward."
A cheering squad of some 3,000 people organized by around 200 civic groups supported both teams, chanting each club's name and refraining from national affiliations in line with AFC guidelines, as announced in a statement released ahead of the match.
Unification Minister Chung Dong Young told a parliamentary committee earlier Wednesday that he would not attend the match, citing a request from the AFC to the Korea Football Association to keep the event free of political overtones.
Chung called the visit meaningful as it was "the first time in seven and a half years that a North Korean athletic delegation has set foot on South Korean soil," saying his ministry would work to ensure the event proceeds smoothly in a way that could help rebuild trust between the two sides.
Sports and civilian exchanges between the two Koreas have been suspended since the end of 2018, following a brief thaw in ties around the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, and were further disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The two nations remain technically at war after the 1950-1953 Korean War ended in an armistice.
