Streets grow louder, emotions run higher and a shared sense of national pride takes over. The feeling may be temporary, but few events \u2013 not even the Olympics or the World Baseball Classic \u2013 stir the same level of collective passion.<\/p>\n
Every World Cup season brings back a familiar figure: the \u201cfly-by-night fan\u201d, referring to people who generally pay little attention to the sport, but become fully invested once the tournament begins.<\/p>\n
Park Jun-seo, a 26-year-old job seeker, calls herself one of them. She normally would not sit through a full football game and admits she barely even knows the rules, formations or how many players make up a team. But upon kick-off, Park finds herself completely swept up in an excitement she did not know she had.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnlike me, my family members are all avid football fans. They regularly watch the men\u2019s national team matches and friendlies. My dad and sister even follow the Premier League and the UEFA Champions League,\u201d Park told The Korea Herald.<\/p>\n
Once the World Cup starts, even her family members cannot match her enthusiasm.<\/p>\n
When Korea played Brazil in the round of 16 at the 2020 FIFA World Cup, Park was the only member of her family who stayed up to watch the game, which started at 4am in Korea.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor some reason, the World Cup creates an atmosphere where participation feels almost inevitable. It\u2019s fun reacting to the matches and making predictions,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
The same goes for Ha Yoo-rim, a 20-year-old university student.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor some reason, the World Cup hits differently. Even people who normally don\u2019t care about football start paying attention. Once it starts, it\u2019s hard not to get caught up in the atmosphere,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ha went on to say that she \u201cfeels part of the team\u201d, especially when players sing the national anthem before the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe World Cup has a power that pulls everyone in. Even people who normally don\u2019t follow football suddenly start caring about the matches and the players,\u201d Ha said.<\/p>\n
Ha\u2019s experience reflects a broader phenomenon in Korea, where the World Cup often transcends sport and becomes a shared national event.<\/p>\n
A survey by CJ Mezzomedia in March found that 6 in 10 Koreans plan to watch national team matches during the ongoing World Cup, with those in their 30s to 50s showing the strongest intention. The survey was conducted among 300 people aged 15 to 59.<\/p>\n
During and after games, respondents said they might search for match results and player information and revisit highlights on video platforms and portal sites, suggesting that support for the team goes beyond expectations of victory or interest in star players.<\/p>\n
Experts point to Korea\u2019s strong sense of collective identity, rooted in shared history and a culture that values social unity, as one reason the World Cup resonates so deeply with the public, even among people who pay little attention to the sport outside the tournament.<\/p>\n
Huh Chang-deog, a sociology professor at Yeungnam University, noted that football has long held a unique place in Korean society because of the unusually strong sense of unity and collective emotion it generates.<\/p>\n
As one of the earliest modern team sports to gain mass popularity in Korea, football gradually became woven into the country\u2019s culture, the professor said.<\/p>\n
He also noted the sport\u2019s strong emphasis on teamwork and collective play, which has strengthened the emotional sense of unity felt by supporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople sometimes question whether patriotism still exists in modern-day society. But moments involving clear external competition, particularly in international sports, often bring out a sense of unity and harmony among Koreans,\u201d the professor said.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/5440c410e0c79d792a316c7562a0a1ed241fb273988a69bf380ee2af5a03917b.webp\")
<\/p>\n
South Korea’s players celebrate after beating Czech Republic in their World Cup opener on June 11.<\/p>\n
PHOTO: AFP<\/p>\n
Even before South Korea established themselves as regional football powerhouses, the sport had already become a major source of public passion.<\/p>\n
In the 1960s and 1970s, matches against regional rivals often sparked nationwide emotional reactions, while stars such as Cha Bum-kun \u2013 one of the greatest football players South Korea has ever produced \u2013 became symbols of national pride.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlayers don\u2019t just compete as athletes, but as symbols of their countries, representing far more than football in a competition that determines the best nation in the world. That brings out the sense of belonging people feel within a larger community,\u201d Huh said.<\/p>\n
Lim Myung-ho, a psychology professor at Dankook University, said the emotional bond is linked to the human desire to belong.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the country has become increasingly individualistic in recent years, the society still places strong value on collective belonging and group identity,\u201d Lim said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo even if Koreans are not avid fans of the sport, that sense of belonging can trigger intense emotional reactions and a brief wave of fandom during the World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n
The professor explained that the World Cup encourages fans to emotionally project themselves onto the national team, making each match feel deeply personal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the national team wins or even scores a goal, people often feel a sense of pride as though they had achieved it themselves. That emotional connection tends to grow even stronger when people feel part of a larger collective,\u201d Lim said. THE KOREA HERALD\/ASIA NEWS NETWORK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEOUL \u2013 Every four years, something shifts \u2013 almost overnight. People who rarely follow football start checking kick-off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-751836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}