Pak Seung-zin (a.k.a. Pak Sung Jin; 11 January 19415 August 2011) was a North Korean

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

. He represented

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...

at the 1966 FIFA World Cup in England, scoring two goals, against

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

and

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. He was the first Asian footballer to score a goal in the World Cup finals.

Career

In his book, '' The Aquariums of Pyongyang'', North Korean defector Kang Chol-hwan claimed that he met Pak in the Yodok concentration camp. He says that Pak and other players on the 1966 team were imprisoned for celebrating the team's victory over Italy in a bar, which was seen as "a sign of bourgeois decadence" by North Korean officials. According to Kang, Pak was in the camp for over 20 years. However, in the documentary film '' The Game of Their Lives'', Pak and the other players were interviewed and denied there had been any retribution.

References

1941 births 2011 deaths Association football forwards North Korean footballers North Korea international footballers 1966 FIFA World Cup players Moranbong Sports Club players {{NorthKorea-footy-bio-stub