World Cup sweepstakes - North Korea

On learning that I'd received North Korea in the workplace World Cup sweepstakes, my first reaction was one of doom and gloom. Typical, I thought, I pay five pounds in order to get the tournament's only dead-cert failure; even after the first match against Brazil it is clear it will all be over.

But then I Googled the North Korean team and discovered that, actually, they have a World Cup record comparable to that of England.

Okay, they may only have got there once, in 1966, but when they did they beat Italy – perhaps the greatest World Cup upset of all time – and only narrowly lost to the Portugal of the legendary Eusebio in the quarter-final.

Not bad, eh. That's a quarter final average.

Whatever one thinks about the politics of the "Democratic People's Republic" of North Korea, it would be hard to begrudge the team's players any sort of upset in the tournament.

Unfortunately for the people of the country, where only one person in a thousand owns a car, they won't be able to watch the tournament following a political stand-off with their neighbours from the South. But after seeing television pictures of the North Korean players training in a mere South African municipal gym, I can't help but hope that they, not only for the sake of my sweepstake, but also for reasons of pure romance, spring a few surprises this summer.

Image © yeowatzup via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence