The head coach of a North Korean soccer team has said his side are “focused only on winning” as they become the first sports team from the nation to play in South Korea since 2018.Ri Yu-il was speaking ahead of Wednesday’s AFC Champions League semi-final between Naegohyang Women, from North Korea capital Pyongyang, and hosts Suwon, based 40 kilometers south of South Korean capital Seoul.No North Korean sports delegation has competed on southern soil since December 2018, when a unified Korean table tennis team competed at a tournament in Incheon.South Korea has not hosted a North Korean women’s soccer team since the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon.“We came here strictly to play the match,” Ri said ahead of the game, in quotes carried by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. “We ​are focused solely on tomorrow’s match and the matches ​ahead.”The AFC Women’s Champions League is the top-tier women’s football club competition in Asia and is in its second season having replaced the AFC Women’s Club Championship in 2024.Naegohyang’s squad were welcomed at Seoul airport ahead of the game (Jung Yeon-je / AFP via Getty Images)What have the players said?Naegohyang defeated Suwon 3-0 in a November group stage meeting staged in Yangon, Myanmar. The North Korean side’s captain Kim Kyong Yong ​said the ​team would “give everything” in a bid to “repay the trust and expectations of our families”.