(Asiad) N. Korean coach stresses focus on football after draw with S. Korea at Asian Games

FUKUROI, Japan, Sept. 21 (Yonhap) -- The head coach of the North Korean women's football team repeatedly stressed that his team simply played football in Monday's inter-Korean match at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.

"We played football. Whoever our opponent is, we just do our play. This is all I can say," Pak Song-jin said during a post-match press conference when asked whether he had given his players any special advice ahead of the match against South Korea.

In the final Group F match at Shizuoka Stadium Ecopa in Fukuroi, about 104 kilometers east of the main host city of Nagoya, the two Koreas drew 1-1.

After three group-stage matches, the two teams had identical records of two wins and one draw, but North Korea topped Group F on goal difference.

The match gained media attention as a rare all-Korean football matchup at the Asian Games.

When a German journalist asked whether Pak and his coaching staff had shaken hands with their South Korean counterparts after the match, Pak repeated his earlier answer and raised his voice, calling the question "eccentric."

"We don't think (South Korea is) special. We see every opponent equally, like Myanmar and Bangladesh in our group," he told a Japanese journalist. "Journalists, don't ask me those questions!"

However, his tone softened somewhat after a South Korean journalist asked about his schedule in Japan outside of football.

"Why not just play football?" he said with a brief laugh. "We'll just play football and give it our all. We won't do anything else besides football."

North Korea will play in the quarterfinals on Friday, with its opponent yet to be determined.