00:00Some estimates say one in three North Koreans is in military service in some capacity.
00:03And the military has its own footballing system, has its own football teams.
00:08So those who have talent are then assigned to those teams and basically are just going to spend their entire
00:11term of service training and playing.
00:13So there is this huge feeder system at all levels of North Korean society.
00:17And then as to the question of why women specifically, why is North Korea so dominant in the women's game?
00:22The creation of the Women's World Cup in the late 1980s was this really precarious time for North Korea because
00:28its chief supporter and kind of prop, the Soviet Union, was flagging and moving towards, you know, collapse.
00:34And post-Mao China, but also becoming a bit more open to the rest of the world.
00:38So to kind of make up this dwindling geopolitical clout, sport was a way for North Korea to remain relevant
00:44and exert some soft power on the world stage.
00:46And although the regime did have this ambitious plan to compete in the men's game, and it still does invest
00:51heavily in the men's game, the women's game at this point was so underdeveloped and underfunded that it was a
00:55much more level playing field for a country like North Korea to kind of get in on the ground floor.
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