Outside the Roller Skating Rink at Palembang's Jakabaring Sport City, a metal detector and an X-ray machine lay partly unboxed, sheltered from the elements by a sheet of plastic.

Five minutes down the road at the Gelora Sriwijaya Stadium, set-up work was still ongoing at what appeared to be a stage flanked by two massive video screens. Over the shoulders of the men perched precariously atop some scaffolding, and inside the stadium at that very moment, South Korea's women footballers could be seen playing their opening Asian Games Group A fixture, against Chinese Taipei.