hankyoreh

What makes Wednesday's rare inter-Korean World Cup qualifier interesting is not just the fact that the countries sharing the last Cold War frontier on earth are squaring off on the pitch.

Nor is it simply that the match comes after North Korea refused to allow South Korea to raise its national flag and play its national anthem in the initial venue, Pyongyang, leading FIFA to compromise by ordering them to play in the neutral city of Shanghai.

It is worth noting, among others, that South Korea, which ranks 47th in the world and seeks its seventh straight World Cup ticket, is in no mood to enjoy complacency ahead of its showdown with the 126th-seeded North.

"Individually, we're more talented, but North Korea has the ability to attack quite fast and skillfully," South Korean manager Huh Jung-moo said before departing for the Chinese city with his squad on Sunday. "It is threatening when the North Koreans quickly reverse from defense to offense."

Huh witnessed some of that threat on Feb. 20 when his team was held to a one-all draw in an East Asian derby in the Chinese city of Chongqing. The South scored first, but the North's top striker, Chong Te-se, equalized in the 72nd minute, frustrating his opponents with his high-octane drive.

"Chong's got quick feet, readily rushes back to help his defenders, and scores well when he has the chance," Cho Won-hee, the South Korean defender who marked Chong in the derby, spoke last week of the 24-year-old rival, who is playing for Kawasaki Frontale of Japan's professional league.

"Chong shows fierce concentration when he has the ball, and rarely misses in scoring chances, which reminds me of Wayne Rooney," said Shin Moon-sun, a local football expert, referring to the 23-year-old top English finisher.

Chong is not the only one keeping the South Korean squad on its toes. Huh displayed jitters last week when he learned that Hong Yong-jo would also appear in the Wednesday qualifier for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Hong, who scored four goals to boost North Korea to the final qualifying round for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, blasted a free-kick goal when his team beat Jordan 1-0 on Feb. 7. On the same day, South Korea moved forward with their 4-0 drubbing of Turkmenistan, also drawn in Group C for the third Asian qualifying round.

"I'm studying almost every day how we can deal with him," Huh said of the 26-year-old midfielder Hong, who is likely to support Chong from behind on Wednesday in North Korea's 4-5-1 formation.

In a move to prevent any upset by North Korea and retain its frontrunning group spot, South Korea has summoned all but one of its players in the English Premier League, considered the most competitive of its kind in the world.

Seol Ki-hyeon of Fulham and Lee Young-pyo of Tottenham Hotspur flew into Shanghai on Sunday while Park Ji-sung of Manchester United is set to join the national squad a day before the match at Hongkou Stadium. Lee Dong-gook of Middlesborough is barred from national matches after a drinking scandal tied to a regional tournament last year.

Despite the intensifying rivalry and the political wrangling ahead of the Shanghai encounter, South Koreans generally voice hope that the two contries, which fought the 1950-53 Korean War, can march to the World Cup together.

Chung Mong-joon, head of South Korea's football association, has repeatedly said he hopes to see the two sides compete in South Africa, noting earlier this month he would be in favor of the communist state using its national anthem and flag during another inter-Korean qualifier set for June in Seoul.

North Korea had insisted that the two Koreas jointly use a flag depicting the Korean Peninsula and a traditional folk song in Pyongyang for the March 26 match, prompting the intervention by the world football governing body.

Asia has been allotted 4.5 tickets for the 2010 World Cup. Five groups of four teams are competing in the third Asian qualifying round, and only two teams from each group will advance to the next and final round.

After the ten winners split into two final-round groups, two from each group will receive World Cup tickets, while the fifth will play a top-seeded team from Oceania for the last remaining berth.

South Korea has a record of five wins, four ties and one loss against the North. North Korea has not appeared in the World Cup since 1966, when it stunned the world by reaching the quarterfinals of the tournament in England.

The fratricidal Korean War ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two states technically in a state of war.

SEOUL, March 25 (Yonhap)