TOKYO — North Korea's national soccer team does not come out to play very often. After a 10-year hiatus from international games, the North Korean squad returned last year from self-imposed seclusion to chase a place in the 2006 World Cup, trailing its aura of mystery.
But North Korea's road to the championship now goes through Japan, former colonizer of the Korean peninsula. Their national teams will meet Feb. 9 in a crucial qualifying game in Saitama, Japan, and the Japanese media and public have greeted the impending showdown with equal measures of fascination and jitters.
The game comes at a moment when the two countries are locked in a rancorous political dispute over at least eight Japanese citizens who were kidnapped by agents of the Communist state during the Cold War and are said to be dead.
Anti-North Korean emotions are running high in Japan over the abductees. A large majority of the Japanese public and media is clamoring for Tokyo to impose economic sanctions against North Korea for what are seen as unconvincing explanations of how the abductees died.
The pressure is building. On Thursday, Japan's Foreign Ministry issued its sharpest warning yet, condemning North Korea for its "extremely unconstructive approach" and warning of "stringent measures" unless Pyongyang became more cooperative about the abductees.
Whether that official anger will spill onto the field or into the stands in Saitama -- where 5,000 ethnic North Koreans living in Japan have bought tickets and will struggle to make their voices heard over 55,000 Japanese fans -- is hard to gauge.
Japan is particularly sensitive in the wake of last summer's Asia Cup tournament held in China, where a sizable number of Chinese fans jeered the Japanese team.
By holding up hostile signs and throwing debris at the Japanese, Chinese fans demonstrated that little is forgotten or forgiven from the years of Japanese war and occupation.
Having criticized the Chinese for not protecting Japanese fans, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has tried to head off similar ugliness when the North Korean team visits Saitama.
"Football is not politics," Koizumi told journalists this month. "I want the match to be enjoyed in a friendly atmosphere. I hope they will look for a good match as supporters who love soccer."
Japan's ultra-right-wing nationalists say they have no intention of disrupting the match.
