Watch.. Shocking behavior by North Korean players at the Junior World Cup | sports

The players of the North Korean junior national team carried out a shocking behavior, before their match against Japan in the quarter-finals of the U-17 World Cup currently being held in the State of Qatar.

The North Korean team bid farewell to the tournament – last Tuesday – after losing the match with Japan on penalties, after the match that was held at the Aspire stadiums ended in a positive draw 1-1.

North Korean players punch their Japanese counterparts instead of shaking hands

Before the start of the match, while the players were lining up to shake hands, the North Korean players began taking unexpected actions, by directing strong punches at the hands of their Japanese rivals, according to what appeared in a video clip that spread on social networking sites.

The North Korean vs Japanese “greeting” before their U17 Round of 16 match was wild.

North Korea came in throwing punches instead of handshakes 😅🇰🇵🇯🇵pic.twitter.com/lU1A5s0R78

— Football Talk (@FootballTalkHQ) November 20, 2025

The Japanese players were walking to shake hands and exchange traditional greetings with their counterparts from North Korea, and things seemed friendly at first, but as they advanced in line, the latter’s players began directing violent blows.

It is noteworthy that these actions went unnoticed by the match referees, according to what the British newspaper “The Sun” reported.

But the Japanese Federation did not remain silent about this, as it submitted an official request to FIFA to open an investigation into the matter.

In the aforementioned match, Japan opened the scoring through its player, Jelani McGhee, 4 minutes after the start, before Ri Hyuk-gwan equalized the score in the second half, so the score continued like this until the penalty shootout, which favored Japan with a score of 5-4.

Later, Japan exited the tournament after losing to Austria 0-1 in the quarter-finals.

The U-17 World Cup has reached the semi-final stage, with its two matches being held tomorrow, Monday, the first bringing together Austria and Italy, while the other semi-finalists are Portugal and Brazil.