TWO teams met at the Jalan Besar Stadium last night. This seems routine except both happened to be called Korea. For 80 minutes, two nations that hardly speak mixed sweat on a sports field. Thank god for football.

The North wore red, the South wore white, and both produced colourful play. South Korean Lee Hui Chan scored a scorching goal from long range which he will be Twittering about already. North Korean Kim Chong Il let the ball through his legs, swivelled and produced a delicious dribble. On a night heavy with anticipation, only feet did the talking.

Grown-ups play politics, boys just want to play. Grown-ups think of missiles, sanctions, divides; boys think of set-pieces, formations and free kicks. Nevertheless, there was pressure yesterday, an understanding that any incident might be blown out of proportion, exaggerated to mean something it wasn't. Yet the only unfriendly thing in the stadium turned out to be the music.

In the tunnel beforehand, young faces tight with tension, hands clapping, the goalkeeper reached out. He tapped his counterpart on the shoulder, got his attention and put out his hand. They shook. It doesn't matter which nation's hand came out first, it was a good start.

Later, South Korean coach Chung Jung Yong sighed and said, these are only 14-year-olds who are taught to 'always have respect for the opposition'. He meant their behaviour wasn't special because of the opponents, but it was hard to escape the fine tone of yesterday's game.

No yellow card came out till the 77th minute and tackles were often followed by a pat on the back from offender to victim. After the match, South's Hui Chan insisted 'there are no bad feelings', but admitted 'there is some tension but I can't understand it'. To their credit, neither team let it show.

Hints that they were once one nation were to be found. Each team owned a Kim, Ro's played against Roh's and Park's against Pak's. On the matter of language, both speak roughly the same Korean but quite a different dialect on the pitch.

The South Koreans were composed, the North Koreans looked slower, and an assistant coach said a previous game against Saudi Arabia had physically deflated them. Nevertheless, for 14-year-olds, they pass the ball around with a studied cool and only their absent poise in front of goal gives away their immaturity.

The score, 3-0 to the South, was fair and the ending was neat. When the whistle blew, the South came to the North bench and bowed, the North boys walked to the South bench and shook hands. This was not political but it was correct.

Nevertheless, politics is hard to escape and a South Korean interpreter admitted the teams had not mixed much but that this was not his nation's choice. Still, he said, confirming that kids can be smarter than adults, 'they're boys, somehow they communicate'. You bet.

Match over, the North Korean boys sat in a bus when the South Koreans walked by. A hand went up in greeting from one side and then a hand waved back from the other. Soon enough, they will be adults and friendly with prejudice. For now, they were just boys playing football.

rohitb@sph.com.sg