The Matildas played North Korea in Pyongyang in 2007. It was unlike anything they'd ever experienced before

In 2007, the Matildas found themselves on a bus travelling through empty streets in North Korea.

They had just landed in the country's capital of Pyongyang for an Olympic qualifying match ahead of the 2008 Beijing Games.

"It was very, very quiet," former Matildas captain and goalkeeper Melissa Barbieri told ABC Sport.

"It was almost surreal the lack of public there was out and about on the streets. I remember driving on the bus and looking out into the streets and thinking there's absolutely no-one around."

The Australian team was based in Beijing so it could travel the short distance across the border to play the game.

The players were not allowed to bring communication devices and could take only minimal personal belongings.

"We had to leave everything in China … the laptop that we had on us to analyse our games, they were trying to confiscate it off us," Barbieri said.

"We managed to convince the guards at the border that we only had it for football purposes. [But] it was very worrisome just getting over the border. We had everything searched."

When they arrived at the hotel, they couldn't see any other guests and staff were sparse.

"We walked into the dining room and every place in the banquet hall was made up with a meal [but] we were the only people staying in the hotel at the time … it was very much a showcase of what they could provide, but there was no-one there to consume it," Barbieri said.

While they were in the hotel elevators, the electricity cut out.

They were between two levels and managed to force the doors open to climb out, but had to find their rooms in the dark.

"Whenever we turned on the TV, it was zero drama, zero funny, zero comedy," Barbieri said.

"It was all very much instructional videos and very much this monotone sort of conveyance of whatever they were trying to talk about.

"Then this very monotone colour scheme wherever you walked."

Things changed when they got back on the bus to head to the game.

"There were people everywhere. You couldn't fit the bus down the street because of everyone," Barbieri said.

"When we walked in, the stadium was absolutely full to the brim and we'd arrived 2 hours early."

Back then, North Korea was a powerhouse of women's football.

It won the Women's Asian Cup in 2001, 2003 and 2008, and reached the quarterfinals of the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup.

During the 2001 tournament, the country scored 53 goals in six matches, a record that still stands.

This followed heavy investment in women's football throughout the 1990s, when leaders Kim Il-sung and then Kim Jong-il pumped money and resources into women's sport.

They regularly emphasised the importance of sport and physical fitness as a projection of the nation's self-image on the global stage.

After the Women's World Cup was established in 1991, North Korea implemented formal football education in schools (setting up a far-reaching scouting network) and offered promising players full-time training and development at the Pyongyang International Football School.

"Without diminishing us as a team, we were very, very scared of DPR Korea," Barbieri said.

"Every time they touched the ball, it was superior. They were fit, they were strong. Every time they got the ball, it was succinct, it was confident … it had a level of authoritarianism.

"It felt like they were superior to us and they knew it and they had an attitude of it every time they stepped onto the pitch."

North Korea beat the Matildas 2-0, with both goals scored by captain Ri Kum Suk.

In the official match report, Australian coach Tom Sermanni said the crowd of more than 30,000 was hostile.

Thomas Gerstner, who coached the North Korean women's under 20 side in 2017, told ABC Sport that because there was no community support for football, people from the military and universities were ordered to attend international matches.

This means huge stadiums will usually be filled "with around 50 per cent uniformed soldiers and 50 per cent students".

Barbieri later spoke with the team's video analyst, who was placed high up in the crowd with his tripod and camera overlooking the pitch.

"There was no barrier — so at any point he could have just been pushed off the barrier and into the crowd," she said.

"Apparently he was using candy to help fight people off for him — and stop them from pushing him over the ledge."

From the players' perspective, Barbieri said the crowd rose and fell with the crescendo of the game — as one normally would — but also laughed and made fun of the Matildas outside of the norm for a typical crowd.

"It was almost like they couldn't believe that this game was happening … it was almost like a comedy for them when we fell over," she said.

"It was a hugely impactful moment for me to have to contend with all the crowd noises and the differentiating aspects of having such a hostile crowd because I'd never experienced that before."

Barbieri said while they were briefed about the country, nothing could have fully prepared them for the experience of playing there.

"People talk about, 'Oh, it's such a different country' and we are such a free country in Australia and we don't have our liberties taken from us," she said.

"I just don't think anyone can understand fully what it would be like to be in North Korea until you're there and your liberties are basically stripped of you and you have to conform yourself to the laws and the restrictions of the country that you're going to.

"And that includes doing what you do on the football pitch."

Four years after that game, North Korea's global footballing superiority came to a sudden halt.

Five North Korean players were accused by FIFA of using a prohibited steroid at the 2011 Women's World Cup.

The country's response was that the substance was derived from the glands of a musk deer, which was used to help the players recover after being struck by lightning.

FIFA rejected the explanation and banned North Korea from the 2014 Asian Cup and 2015 World Cup. The country then failed to qualify in 2018 and 2019, before the COVID-19 years.

"After 2007 and the pinnacle of them destroying us every time we played them, they fell off … those crops of players fell off the face of the Earth," Barbieri said.

Yet while the senior team was in the international wilderness, the junior sides were on the rise.

North Korea has won every junior Women's World Cup during the past two years, including two under-17s tournaments and one under-20s.

Those world-conquering youth sides have now fed into the senior team, including at this Asian Cup, where only three North Koreans at the 2026 tournament are older than 24.

Six players of the current squad are from the winning under-20 world cup team, including Choe II-son, who won the Golden Ball at both the under-20 and under-17 world cups in 2024 and took out the 2025 AFC Women's Youth Player of the Year.

"I really feel like maybe they've been biding their time for those players to come to a mature age and then dominate Asia and then follow on from that, play in the World Cup," Barbieri said.

"Already in their first match, I just saw the DPR Korea of old, where every touch was sublime," Barbieri said, of the country's 3-0 win against Uzbekistan before defeating Bangladesh 5-0.

"Every touch [and] fluidity of movement just orchestrated to a tee … I feel like it was scary watching them again."

North Korea's next match is a knockout Asian Cup quarterfinal against the Matildas on Friday in Perth.

It will be the latest in a long history of international meetings between the two teams: most notably the 2010 Women's Asian Cup, when Australia won on penalties with a side that featured a 16-year-old Sam Kerr.

That same Kerr, now a 32-year-old, is desperate to get another win over them.

ABC Sport will be live blogging all the action from tonight's game between the Matildas and North Korea from 8pm AEDT