{"id":4638,"date":"2009-06-18T16:04:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-18T21:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/2009\/06\/north-korean-explosion\/"},"modified":"2009-06-18T16:04:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-18T21:04:00","slug":"north-korean-explosion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/2009\/06\/north-korean-explosion\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korean Explosion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good news for planet Earth: Kim Jong-Il may finally have a reason not to blow up the world. When next year\u2019s FIFA World Cup takes place in South Africa, the North Korean team, for the first time since 1966, will be suiting up to play in the finals. They\u2019ll join Japan<\/st1:country-region>, South Korea<\/st1:country-region> and Australia<\/st1:country-region> as last of Asia<\/st1:place>\u2019s automatic qualifiers for the 2010 event. <\/p>\n

In a match that never lit up anyone\u2019s radar outside of the respective diehards for each club, South Korea<\/st1:country-region> and Iran<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> finished their qualifying match in a draw. This left the door wide open for North Korea<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>. With a win over Saudi Arabia<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>, they would be in. Although the game ended in a draw, North Korea<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> claimed their second-ever berth in Group 2 due to a goal difference. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

In a move that shocked most people, North Korea<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> actually played solid defense instead of going on the offensive. Perhaps it\u2019s lucky that the coach, Kim Jong-hun, isn\u2019t Jong-Il after all. <\/p>\n

North Korea<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> has a long road ahead of them. With a year left to go, the training begins now. If we know anything about North Korea<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>, it\u2019s that they don\u2019t like to lose. Their players will be more than ready to go. But with defending champs Italy<\/st1:country-region>, France, Spain<\/st1:country-region>, Japan<\/st1:country-region>, and even the USA<\/st1:country-region> in the mix, North Korea<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>\u2019s odds are a little slim at the moment. <\/p>\n

They\u2019re currently ranked 106 in the world according to the FIFA rankings. For North Korea<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> to even make it out of the first round of the finals would be a shocker. Undoubtedly, they\u2019ll be one of the event\u2019s largest underdogs. If you\u2019re a fan of the underdog who loves betting on a long shot, North Korea<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> is your team. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Brazil<\/st1:country-region> is the prohibited favorite to date, with Argentina<\/st1:country-region>, England<\/st1:country-region>, Germany<\/st1:country-region> and Italy<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> close behind. This event is watched by over a billion people around the globe, and all told, it generates more betting revenue than an entire decade of Super Bowls. That\u2019s not chump change!<\/p>\n

To give you a perspective of the lines here, take a look at two teams and how they stack up on the betting sheet. Brazil<\/st1:country-region> is 4-1 to win, while American Samoa<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000-1 to win. Imagine a roulette bet<\/a><\/span> or a regular sporting bet that held those kinds of odds. Although the line isn\u2019t fixed on North Korea<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> yet, they\u2019ll end up closer to American Samoa<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> than Brazil<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

OffshoreInsiders.com<\/b><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good news for planet Earth: Kim Jong-Il may finally have a reason not to blow up the world. When next year\u2019s FIFA World Cup takes place in South Africa, the North Korean team, for the first time since 1966, will be suiting up to play in the finals. They\u2019ll join Japan, South Korea and Australia … Continue reading North Korean Explosion<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}