Interesting facts about DPRK’s fourth World Cup victory
December 9, 2025The 2025 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup held in Morocco recently was the first of its kind to be attended by 24 teams.
It also marked the first U-17 women’s world cup held in Africa.
As well as the beginning that took on some new features, the conclusion of the event was truly impressive.
The DPRK team, which became the first three-time winner of the tournament with its triumph in the last event, renewed its record again at the recent event to be the first four-time World Cup winner.
This is not the whole story. The first goal scored by the DPRK’s Kim Won Sim in the 38th second of the quarterfinal match against Japan was recorded as the fastest goal of the tournament. The DPRK team became the one that scored the largest number of goals (25 goals) in one tournament and advanced to the final for the largest number of times (5 times) in the history of the U-17 Women’s World Cup.
There are also many interesting facts about the DPRK team’s victory.
Which was the ‘group of death’?
When the result of the draw for group matches of the 2025 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup was published, many football experts and fans began to choose the “group of death”.
However, as the overall abilities of the groups were fairly matched, it was not easy to choose one.
It was possible that Group A with Brazil and Italy, the aces from South America and Europe, and Morocco, the host country, or Group B with the DPRK, the winner of the last event, and the Netherlands, the European champion, could be selected as the “group of death”.
As the tournament started and time progressed, the prediction on the “group of death” became more and more intriguing.
At the end of the group league matches, it was four groups that respectively advanced three teams to the last 16.
They were Group A that advanced Italy, Brazil and Morocco, Group B the DPRK, Mexico and the Netherlands, Group D Canada, France and Nigeria and Group F Paraguay, Zambia and Japan.
The true form of the “group of death” started to show up in the knock-out stage.
The three teams from Group B advanced into the quarter-finals and semi-finals and, eventually, took the top three places in the tournament.
The top three from one group was an unprecedented result in the history of the tournament.
First clean sweep of all four individual prizes
The individual top scoring record at the U-17 Women’s World Cup is eight goals.
Ri Un Sim of the DPRK scored eight goals at the 2012 event to win the Golden Boot award.
In the recent event, the country produced another top scorer.
She is No. 10 forward Yu Jong Hyang who scored eight out of the 25 goals by the DPRK team and was chosen as the player of the match for three times.
Though she performed outstanding feats for the team, when a journalist asked who was better between her and Kim Won Sim, Yu wore a shy smile and said, “I don’t know who the best player in our team is, but I think Won Sim is better than me. She is a more amazing player than I am.”
The Golden Ball and Adidas Golden Boot were awarded to Yu Jong Hyang and the Silver Ball and Adidas Silver Boot to No. 15 Kim Won Sim.
It was the first time in the history of the tournament that all four weighty individual prizes were won by the DPRK players.
THE PYONGYANG TIMES
