sports

The Naegohyang Team of the DPRK has become even more popular among people.

The team lifted a trophy in the 2025-2026 AFC Women’s Champions League to become the best women’s football team in Asia and the first women’s football club team in the country to win the continental championship.

Ten-odd years

It has been only ten-odd years since the team was organized.

It made its international debut at the then AFC U-14 Girls’ Regional Championship in 2013 and advanced to the final match there.

When the DPRK women’s football team won the then 2017 AFC U-16 Women’s Championship, the main force of the team comprised the coaches and players of the Naegohyang Team.

The Naegohyang has won several trophies in national games including the DPRK Championships and the DPRK women’s premier league over the past ten-odd years.

In particular, it took part in the 2025-2026 AFC Women’s Champions League as the winner of the 2023-2024 DPRK women’s premier league and lifted the trophy.

Victory assured before game

“All the circumstances that we had imagined during our training occurred in the matches. There was no unexpected situation,” said all the players of the Naegohyang Team referring to the recent victory.

It shows how much effort the coaches and players of the team including chief coach Ri Yu Il devoted for the victory in the 2025-2026 AFC Women’s Champions League.

The coaches worked out the reasonable plans for tactics according to various tides of the matches and included in them all factors, such as an 11m penalty kick, free kick, injury of players and psychological aspects, and the players successfully performed the scientific and intensive training according to the plans.

“Today we lost in terms of spiritual strength and tactics. We tried to find the rhythm peculiar to our team, but found no solution until the end of the game. The Naegohyang Team is definitely qualified as the winner,” said the chief coach of the team which had played the final match with the Naegohyang.

Convincing victory of ‘our’ own

When you look at the list of players of the Naegohyang Team who participated in the champions league, you will take note of a fact which cannot be seen in the teams of other countries. It is that the team has no player or coach of foreign nationality.

All the players and coaches of the team, including chief coach Ri Yu Il and player Kim Kyong Yong who was awarded the best player prize, started learning football in the small primary school playgrounds in their native places and cultivated their talents under the well-organized reserve players training system of the country.

The team’s victory, as its name Naegohyang (my native place) suggests, was that of “ours” they won by striving in Korean way to bring honour to their native places and country.