North Korean players camera-shy after beating Japan 1-0
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-08-01 19:23

North Korea's soccer team kept journalists off-limits when players trained on Monday, a day after they beat World Cup qualifiers Japan at the start of the East Asia championship, Reuters reported. 

After being kicked out of the stadium in Taejon, south of Seoul, photographers and television crews took long-range shots from the roof of a nearby college.

The country stunned Japan 1-0 in the soccer tournament on Sunday, although there was no repeat of the March crowd trouble in Pyongyang that forced the North Koreans to play a World Cup qualifier against Japan behind closed doors in June.

Japan won that match 2-0 in an eerily empty Bangkok stadium to qualify for the 2006 finals in Germany.

On Sunday, North Korea -- who last appeared in a World Cup finals in 1966 -- made amends with a lone 26th-minute goal from Kim Yong-jun.

Yet they seemed in defensive mode on Monday.

When journalists tried to approach North Korean players training in a stadium, a South Korean guard blocked them, saying: "The North Korean team told us to send reporters packing."

National teams from China, Japan, North Korea and South Korea are playing in men's and women's events at three venues in South Korea from July 31 to August 7. Each team has three matches and whoever tops the table is the winner.

CAUSED CONTROVERSY

In the other men's match on Sunday, China and South Korea drew 1-1 in a game that caused controversy because the referee apparently sent off the wrong Chinese player for a foul. The North Korean referee also sent off two other Chinese players.

South Korean newspapers showed photographs of dejected South Korean players kneeling on the pitch at the end after failing to take advantage of China being three men down.

"South Korea, China and Japan have had close ties in various fields in history but sometimes were in conflict. Also, confrontation between the North and South still continues since the 1950-1953 Korean War ended without a peace treaty," the Korean Football Association said in a statement to Reuters.

The association is the South's soccer governing body and its president, Chung Mong-joon, also heads the East Asian Football Federation set up in 2002 just before Japan and South Korea co-hosted the World Cup.

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