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[Awards Review]
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▶ Global Soccer Fans Gather at Seoul World Cup Stadium for Kickoff
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[2002/05/31 ]
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Seoul, May 31 (Yonhap) -- Soccer fans from around the world converged on Seoul World Cup Stadium Friday to watch the long-awaited kickoff of this year's FIFA championship.
Thousands of multinational fans from France, Senegal, Argentina, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Ecuador, China, South Africa, Spanish and the United States were on hand for the opening ceremony.
Ordinary spectators for co-hosts Korea and Japan filled the remaining seats, while local supporters of both the French and Senegal sides augmented the foreign cheerleading contingent.
The French supporters, wearing their national colors, showed up in force turning a large part of the stadium blue with fans waving the Tricolor and banners calling on their team to repeat their 1998 performance.
They also unfurled a huge flag of their country with the Korean national flag placed in the center.
Supporters of the Senegal team were also noticeable, with Korean spectators donning on yellow shirt depicting the Korean and Senegal flags to root for the African team. A dozen Senegal nationals, dressed in their finest traditional attire, rooted for their team with drums.
The spectators started to fill the 60,000-plus-seat stadium several hours before the official referees whistle marking the start of the first World Cup match of the 21st century.
They were feasted to live musical performance by musical talents like Park Jin-young and the impressive opening ceremony highlighting the merging of the co-hosts' technological prowess, vision of the future and traditional beauty.
The crowd then came alive with the start of the competition with dazzled fans waving flags as they cheered for the their respective teams, using the hand-held drums distributed at the stadium, and the glow-in-the dark lanterns.
The festivities were also attended by leaders of co-hosts Korea and Japan, heads of Korea's political parties, presidential hopefuls, ranking government officials and members of the world sports community and the diplomatic corps.
The French side under Roger Lemerre, reflecting the amount of expectations they placed on this year's game, arrived at the stadium two hours before the start of the match and appeared on the pitch to examine the condition of the grass. Their opponents from the African nation arrived at the stadium 15 minutes later. |
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