Tenor Andrea Bocelli, left, and singer EJAE perform during the opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup 2026 at Mexico City Stadium.REUTERS/YONHAP
Kim Seung-hyun
The author is an editorial writer at the JoongAng Ilbo.
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I never expected to hear Korean lyrics at the opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup 2026. Yet the tournament's official anthem, "DNA," performed by singer EJAE included a line in Korean: "Even if I fall again, I'll rise again" (translated). Those words were unexpectedly moving. The emotion went beyond simple pride in K-pop. They seemed to capture the story Korea has written on the World Cup stage over the decades.
The following English lyric also resonated with many middle-aged Koreans: "This is more than just a game, it's our DNA."
That is exactly how many of us remember the World Cup. Its defining moments are etched into our memories like a genetic code. They tell the story of a nation that repeatedly challenged its limits and overcame them together.
As a teenager, however, the World Cup was a source of heartbreak. I still remember being up before dawn to watch the Korean team's opening match at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. Led by the late Diego Maradona, Argentina defeated Korea 3-1 in Mexico City, the same place where EJAE would perform the tournament's anthem four decades later. At the time, however, Korea looked overwhelmed by the wide gap separating it from the world's elite teams.
I remember telling myself I would never stay up for another dawn kickoff after crying into my pillow. Defender Huh Jung-moo drew criticism for his rough tackles on Maradona, reinforcing the stereotype of "taekwondo football." Yet that painful match also produced Korea's first World Cup goal, scored by Park Chang-sun. Even in defeat, hope survived that one day Korea would finally win.
That long-awaited breakthrough came in the opening match of the 2002 FIFA World Cup, which took place in both Korea and Japan, when Korea defeated Poland 2-0. I watched the game at a colleague's housewarming party, and we linked arms and downed a celebratory shot after Korea's victory. It was Korea's first World Cup victory in 48 years after making its tournament debut in 1954.
The dream of that first victory had been passed from one generation to the next long before I was born. If that is not DNA, what is? The trauma I had carried since childhood finally began to fade. The slogan "Dreams Come True" became reality as Korea advanced to the semifinals, a record that remains the best finish ever achieved by an Asian nation.
Twenty-four years later, I feel Korea has grown again. Recently, FIFA's official Instagram account posted photos of six Korean players, placing one Korean syllable over each image to spell "Even if you fall, again" (tranlsated) in Korean. The message comforted fans after Korea's narrow 1-0 defeat to Mexico by borrowing the Korean lyric from EJAE's anthem. Our language had become part of the World Cup's emotional vocabulary.
If "Jung-kkok-ma" — short for "The important thing is an unbreakable spirit" — served as a rallying cry for Koreans during the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, then "Even if you fall, rise again" has become a message to the world. The global rise of Korean culture has made that possible. BTS waving to fans from the balcony of Mexico's National Palace, EJAE winning a Grammy Award and her performance of "Golden" (2025) from Netflix's animated hit "KPop Demon Hunters" from the same year all helped place Korea at the center of the world's biggest cultural stage.
Dreams are never achieved by chance. EJAE's success was made possible by the determination of Korean Canadian director Maggie Kang, who created "KPop Demon Hunters" after deciding to confront the sense of marginalization she experienced growing up in North America by embracing Korean culture. Her story resembles the path Korean football has taken.
Ha Seok-ju's frustration after scoring Korea's first-ever opening goal in a World Cup match before being sent off against Mexico in 1998, Ahn Jung-hwan's redemption through his golden goal against Italy after missing a penalty in 2002 and the breathtaking run by Son Heung-min and Hwang Hee-chan that secured Korea's dramatic victory over Portugal and a place in the knockout stage at Qatar in 2022 have all became part of that shared DNA.
Families, companies and nations pursuing their dreams grow the same way. They stumble, recover and move forward together. Every story is different, but all are sustained by the same unbreakable spirit and the same determination to rise again after every fall.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
