Who are these North Korean fans?

… with their matching jacket/hat/scarf combo and synchronized flag-waving celebrations?:

Relatives of the Dear Leader? Escaped ex-pats, unable to escape the athletic element of Juche? Someone also told me they were all Chinese.

I also enjoyed the sight of these two mugs who seemed to have sneaked their way into the North Korean fan-section. The one on the left is madly waving a PRK flag. Effective, defensive football spreading the light of Juche to the hearts of the corrupted West?:

Also worth reading: Marina Hyde’s account of the PRK team’s first publicity encounter with western capitalist devil press:

As for North Korea’s star striker, he is the Japan‑born Jong Tae-se, who plays in Japan’s J‑League, drives a Hummer and finds his team‑mates appealingly quaint. Writing on his blog earlier this year, Jong described a stopover on a team trip from Switzerland to Austria, during which his team‑mates were stunned to discover you had to pay to use the gents in a station. “They turned to me,” recalled Jong, “and said, ‘This is truly what capitalist society is like.’” It’s a reasonable point.