What’s your favorite color?
With every South Korea victory, there’s an important bonus for us at World Sport. Did I say bonus? Outside the window of our CNN workspace in Seoul, millions of red-shirted fans pack the streets on each national team match day, making for an easy story. Did I say easy?
Along with our camera artists (they’re much more than just cameramen), Chuck and William, we’ve been out among the masses for all 5 matches. None have compared to Saturday afternoon’s dramatic affair against Spain.
We began the adventure too late, walking from our bureau to the now infamous city hall area only a half hour before match time. A walk that would normally take 10 minutes took nearly an hour, as every avenue available was filled with sitting Koreans. And those that weren’t sitting, were moving frantically to find a place to sit before kickoff.
The idea is for the fans to be able to watch the match on a dozen or so big screen televisions, but as it turned out, fans were just happy to be together singing and chanting. Some had radios, some had little handheld TVs, some sat around shops that had propped their televisions up out on the sidewalk.
With Chuck as our leader, Pedro Pinto, our reporter, and I tried as best we could to wade together through the red sea. We finally made it underground into the labyrinth of tunnel in the subway system, and emerged at our destination, the Seoul Plaza Hotel, about 20 minutes into the match.
Through previous arrangement, they would let us on the 3rd floor, a vantage point of the city hall area that is unprecedented. Down below, as far as you could see, millions of red fire ants basked in perfect Spring weather, oohing and ahhing at each touch of the ball, sending their 11 players more and more energy with mass ritualistic cheers and chants.
For the objective viewer, it was unforgettable, especially when that last penalty kick sent South Korea into the semifinals of a World Cup, a semifinal set for Seoul itself on Tuesday. With quarterfinal celebrations that would rival having won the Cup, I can’t imagine what will happen on Tuesday. But I imagine I’ll be there.
Till next time,
--Joe
World Sport supervising producer Joe McCurdy is providing a behind-the-scenes look at covering the World Cup.
