HAN Kwang-Song was a teenage sensation courted by Liverpool and Manchester City.
In only his second senior game in European football, Han beat former England goalkeeper Joe Hart to become the first North Korean to score in Serie A.
Barely two years later the striker joined Italian giants Juventus.
But a mysterious chain of events was already in motion that would wreck Han’s promising career and deliver him back him to obscurity.
Han, who once had the world at his feet, finds himself a virtual prisoner of global politics.
He is back in North Korea and playing for army team April 25 in the domestic league, leaving the pariah state only for national team games.
But even that is better than being stranded abroad for three years by the Covid-19 pandemic and being forced to train on his own at an embassy, with his promising career in ruins.
It was a trip to Barcelona that set Han on the road to short-lived stardom.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un loves using sport as a political tool – just like his dad Kim Jong-Il, who once claimed to have hit a 38 under-par 34, including several holes in one, in his first ever round of golf.
At the Pyongyang International Football School, the motto is said to be: “Better than Messi.”
The regime was looking for an academy in Europe to train their best young footballers and chose Fundacion Marcet in Barcelona.
Coaches travelled to Pyongyang and selected 18 players, including Han, to go to Catalonia in the autumn of 2013.
Jose Ignacio Marcet, president of the academy and a former Barca and Real Madrid player, explained how the young visitors took time to adapt.
Marcet said: “They couldn’t take losing. They understood that the norm was to win.
“Because of this we had to teach them that losing and making errors was vital in the learning process and it’s one of the keys to success.
“Week by week they began to change their mentality.
“They became more relaxed and quickly started to adapt to the dynamics of Spanish culture.
“The players that left were completely different to ones they were when they arrived.
“I think we managed to leave a mark on a country that doesn’t easily take in foreign influence”.
Some of those youngsters made a mark on the global football stage less than a year later.
Han scored the equaliser as North Korea’s under-16s came from behind to beat South Korea 2-1 in the final of the Under-17 Asia Cup in September 2014.
He continued his European football education at an academy in Perugia as part of a collaboration between the North Korean government and agency Italian Soccer Management, but could not officially play because of Fifa rules about the transfer of minors.
Nevertheless City and Liverpool were among those to show interest in his progress, with Reds chief scout Barry Hunter reportedly travelling to meet the player and his representatives.
In 2016, Han was close to joining Fiorentina with compatriot Choe Syong-Hok, who had scored the winner in that Asia Cup final.
But instead he went on trial at Cagliari in February 2017 and was so impressive for the youth teams that by April he was making his senior debut against Palermo.
And in Cagliari’s next match, at home to Torino, he made history after coming on as an 81st-minute substitute.
With his team trailing 1-3, Han beat Hart in the Torino goal. It was particularly big news because one of Italy’s biggest football embarrassments, at the 1966 World Cup of 1966, was a defeat by North Korea.
Han said: “I feel at home here. I’m very happy and I would like to thank the manager, my team-mates and the club.”
Yet the political issues that would eventually send Han into football exile had already surfaced.
International team-mate Choe’s time at Fiorentina had ended after four months because it was found that his salary was being funnelled back to the North Korean authorities.
Similar concerns were raised about Han’s wages, especially after he signed a five-year professional contract with Cagliari in June 2017.
But for now he was free to continue his promising career – albeit with some interference from back home.
Han went on loan to Serie B side Perugia where his goals had to do the talking for him – because the North Korean regime blocked an interview on Italian television.
Perugia president Massimiliano Santopadre said: “A call from a shadow ministry figure arrived and it blocked everything.
“Negotiating, like on the transfer market, was impossible, too, because Pyongyang want to talk only and exclusively with Han.
“The situation with their government has become even more rigid and their footballers have been prohibited from appearing on TV, otherwise they would have repatriated him. Han is scared.”
Whatever his fears, the striker kept doing well and after two seasons at Perugia, he went on another loan, this time to Juventus’ Under-23 side and with an obligation to buy at the end of the two-year deal.
Han, in a written post via the ISM International Scouting Center, said: “It has been a long way but finally I can say my dream came true [after] scoring my first goal in the Serie A and becoming the first North Korean to wear such an important shirt as Juventus’.”
Juventus called Han up to the bench of the first team in October 2019 and on January 2 202,0 they bought him from Cagliari for around £3m.
But only six days later, the 21-year-old was sold on for twice the price to Qatari side Al-Duhail.
What was going on? Well, let’s rewind to the end of 2017, the year Han arrived in Cagliari.
In June of that year, Han had made his senior debut for North Korea in a friendly against Qatar.
But in September, his country carried out its sixth nuclear test, prompting the United Nations Security Council to announce further sanctions.
In November, North Korea upped the ante still further by launching an intercontinental ballistic missile.
So in December, the UN announced that all North Koreans working and “generating foreign export earnings that the DPRK…uses to support its prohibited nuclear ballistic programs” would have to be sent home by December 22 2019.
Given the stipulations of Resolution 2397, it remains unclear how Cagliari, Juventus and Al-Duhail got away with selling and buying Han in January 2020.
And only Han knows what was going on in his head, but on the pitch he scored five goals in 16 appearances as Al-Duhail won the Qatar Stars League and finished runners up in the Cup.
But Han’s appearance as a substitute in the final game of the 2019/20 season, on August 20, would be the last time that the wider world saw him for more than three years.
Official documents and the odd media report are all there is to fill in the blanks.
UN records show that Han’s contract with Al-Duhail was terminated by early 2021, in compliance with the prohibition on employing North Koreans.
Yet Han could not even go home because his homeland had closed its borders completely in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
There is allegedly evidence that he flew from Doha to Rome on January 26. And then the trail goes cold and relies on hearsay for nearly three years.
An article in China quoted a former North Korean international player named An Yingxue as saying: “Han Guang-shong was trapped in the North Korean Embassy in China due to the pandemic and trained alone for about two to three years.
“It is a pity that Han Guang-shong could not return to the North Korean football team to participate in the game earlier during his time in China.”
But the first time anyone in the outside world knew for sure what Han was doing and where, was when North Korea finally resumed competitive football in September 2023 after a gap of nearly four years.
Han played the first half of a 1-0 defeat in Syria in the opening game of the second round of Asian qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup.
In early 2024, Japanese media reported that Han was back in North Korea and playing for the April 25 Sports Club.
The team’s name derives from the date that Kim Il-Sung, grandfather of Kim Jong-Il, established the predecessor of the Korean People’s Army in order to fight the Japanese occupiers.
Multi-sports institution April 25 belongs to the Ministry of People’s Armed Forces and all its players are considered army officers.
Little is known now about the life and career of footballer/soldier Han, who is still only 25.
His last international appearance was on November 19 last year in a 1-0 home defeat by Turkmenistan that left North Korea rock bottom of their group in the third round of World Cup qualifying.
The game, like earlier “home” matches, was staged in Laos, because of what the regime described as “security concerns”.
North Korea finally re-opened to limited numbers of tourists last month after a gap of more than five years.
But the door seems to have slammed shut on Han’s dreams of becoming a global football star.
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