KOREA!

After I traveled through Italy, Austria, and Spain, I arrived in the Czech Republic. I was able to see a great many Korean backpackers on the train. All of them were heading for a soccer game between Korea and the Czech Republic, scheduled on August 15th, which is the Independence Day of Korea. As I reached the stadium, Red Devils, the cheering squad for Korean national soccer team, and Korean residents already filled seats up. The Stadium was already in wild excitement, and I was so excited about the prospect of seeing Guss Hidink, the head coach and Korean players. Several groups of police officers were deployed and enclosed the stadium for possible mayhem of hooligans. I met five backpackers there, and we planned some special performance before the game began. Six of us took off our shirts, and wrote six letters: K,O,R,E,A, and ! on each of our chests with lipstick we borrowed from a Korean female resident. I got the “O.” Accidently, we were captured by cameras of some Korean broadcast groups, who came over there to relay the game. Thinking as if we were pro-independence fighters, all of us yelled and sang songs to cheer the Korean national team until we were horse. The game result was 5-0. We lost. The Czech Republic already failed to move up to the next year’s World Cup finals. But, as though they wreaked their anger upon the Korean team, Czech players showed great performance behind the striking power of Jan Koller who is 6’7’’. I was so furious but cheered the players up.