(??? = victory, ??? = ?) My best guess is that it means something like "Go on to Victory!"
Saturday morning at 4am I watched Korea's third World Cup 2006 game from the comfort of my home with Una. She was tired and I was happy enough to watch from here too. We had all the fixings for full night-out blast; red shirts, devil horns, and temporary tattoos. But, the City Hall area looked to be a mess of hundreds of thousands of people, and the World Cup Stadium looked fully packed on TV by 9pm (yeah, that's SEVEN hours before game time), and we didn't have any immediate ideas about where to head in my neighborhood.
So, we watched TV. There was lots of live music and cheering going on at both of the aforementioned locations and it was being broadcast live. We had the most comfortable seats for the pregame show!
Once the game started, it was clear it would be a struggle for Korea. The referees were obviously favoring the Swiss and Korea was having problems with passing and shot accuracy that it couldn't overcome.
My prediction, or at least the office betting pools I had paid into, gave Korea the victory at 1:0--but it was the inverse that came true. As the game ended there was no cheering outside, there were no car horns punctuating chants of "?????????, and no hooliganism. Just sad faces on TV.
Korea's nationwide World Cup craze may be unique, but I can explain why millions of people tuned into the games: little country syndrome. As a country that historically knew victory only rarely, and defeat all-too-well (to the Chinese, Mongolians, Japanese, and nearly to the communists), Korea has found that despite it's small size it can complete internationally in sports. In the sports arena it's all about the talents of your people... and how much money you're willing to pay your foreign coaches. So it is with great national pride that Koreans watched, cheered, and eventually cried for the World Cup 2006.
UPDATE: A Korean shit storm has stewed up over the match. Head on over to The Marmot's Hole for some interesting reading.
Interesting thoughts Max in regards to your theory on little country syndrome. The spirit of Korea in support of their team was tremendous as observed as I watched the game in a hotel room in Sacramento (while Candace was undergoing tests at UC Med). I've got to get my hands on a set of those light up devil horns... hint, hint.... :)
*As a country that historically knew victory only rarely, and defeat all-too-well (to the Chinese, Mongolians, Japanese, and nearly to the communists)*
I dunno about that.. not in terms of sports.. Korea usually kicks every single butt of the mentioned countries in sports. I don't know what ancient war has to do with any of this except maybe Japan because the colonisation was rather recent. No one really despise japanese for the war 300 years ago.
Well, at least Korea won a match, US got butt whipped every single match except the tied game. While Korea's Victory is against the African nation, US got ass crushed by an African nation.
Well at least US dominates Baseball.. oh wait they got ass kicked by Korea in WBC. Korea has nothing to lose when competing on international level.. simply because not many expect them to perform too well.. US is well, lil different.
You're right, some of the sports probably has nothing to do with money spent and size of the country..
I wanted to get over to the local stadium here to watch one of the games (and take a pic or two), but I couldn't get my ass out of the house, though I did stumble into the living room to turn the TV on.
I lost money on it as well - I had Korea going into the 2nd round - not that I was in any way sure that they would, but I didn't want to root against them.
I want Ghana to go far.
I reached the World Cup Stadium before 10, just when the gates closed. If only I'd been in line, oh, twelve hours ago--
What a heartbreaker that game was. I was really hoping Korea would make it into the second round.
Now I'm going to support Ghana, but my enthusiasm has fallen a whole lot.
Ok, I'll bite. What's the appeal of Ghana?
I needed an underdog, really. I'll go for Ukraine now.
Who are you rooting for?
I can't say that I'm rooting for any team now that Korea's out. But, I've had a suspicion that Argentina will come out on top since I watched those six unanswered goals against the Czech Republic.
It was Serbia and Montenagro Kracka.
Argentina's got gas in the tank to go the distance. Best match up in the round of 8 will be when they play Germany.
Portugal is made of glass and can't win without shit calls. England will prevail even with injuries.
The round of 32 spun out most of the teams I wanted to see. Guess I love watching the failures. :)