THE GUIDE - War games - There's no beating a game where two nations face off in a global showdown, both aiming to score as many political points as goals. Andrew Mueller plays referee in sport's biggest grudge matches. 

The world hears a lot about North Korea, but the world, if pressed, could probably only name three North Koreans: Kim Il Sung, the Great Leader, the founding father, who has not been formally disencumbered of his responsibilities as head of state despite being dead for some years; Kim Jong Il, the Dear Leader, son and heir of the aforementioned; and Pak Do Ik, a sprightly winger who, one improbable afternoon at Ayrsome Park during the 1966 World Cup, scored the only goal in a 1-0 victory over Italy. North Korea, then as now the most secretive country on earth, had announced themselves with one of the greatest sporting upsets of all time. 

"In the dressing room at half time," recalls Pak during an amazing film called The Game Of Their Lives, "the players were full of resolve. We knew what the Great Leader expected of us." (Which, whatever one's opinion of Stalinist totalitarianism, makes a change from, "Well, I've hit it across the keeper and it's gone in and at the end of the day I've got to be pleased with that, Garth.") 

The Game Of Their Lives catches up with North Korea's 1966 side, 35 years later. The film took four years to organise, while permission to take cameras to North Korea was wrung from the authorities in Pyongyang. It was worth the wait. The old men, their suits spangled with dutifully polished medals, tell of and exemplify a life and mindset incomprehensible outside North Korea at a number of levels, whether it's their heartfelt tears when discussing the late Great Leader, or their wistful nostalgia for Middlesbrough, the population of which adopted the North Koreans as their own during the team's stay there. 

While their Italian opponents went home to a reception of angrily flung vegetables, the North Koreans proceeded to a quarter final with Portugal. Incredibly, they were 3-0 up at one point, before Eusebio started playing, scoring four and laying on a fifth. 

They'd proved their point, though, in the way that only sport can. Their country had only existed for 21 years. It had been at war with half the world, including Britain, 14 years previously, and still wasn't recognised by the government of the United Kingdom (the Foreign Office went to extraordinary lengths to prevent the North Korean anthem being played during the tournament). But after 1966, everyone knew who they were. 

Sport has never been played in a vacuum. Governments use it to prove things to each other as ruthlessly as the participants, as anyone involved in the following matches would wearily confirm.