If there's one country on earth where it's extremely difficult to know exactly how daily life proceeds in the sporting sphere or otherwise, it's got to be North Korea.
But James Montague is one person who has an idea about the way in which football is run in the secretive state, having traveled their for a Bleacher Report piece called Inside the Secret World of Football in North Korea which opens a window into a closed off society.
He joined Nathan Murphy and Kevin Kilbane to tell us about what he witnessed in Pyongyang which had the backdrop of the Asian Cup qualifier between North Korea and Lebanon in September.
"This is the hardest place to go and watch a football I've ever been to," he said of that experience.
"I've been trying to get into North Korea for 10 years but there is one hotmail address for the FA that you write to, and I've written to it sometimes late at night just to see if randomly someone will reply, and never once had a reply from this email address."
When political events began to make a trip to North Korea appear more unlikely, there was a development.
"Eventually there was a company in China called Koryo Tours who do tourism effectively - a British company - and one of the guys was producing a documentary called The Game Of Their Lives which is about the '66 team which famously got to the quarter finals. So I was back and forth with them and they said, 'We don't usually take journalists in but we can take you in and we'll take you to a football match' because sport for them is less of a threat than writing about politics," said Montague, who was able to get into North Korea that way.
"It was quite a tricky time to go but I thought, 'What's the worst that can happen?' I was there with the Lebanese team, the game's going ahead... and then of course, the second day I'm there, the H Bomb goes off!"
You can listen into the full interview on the podcast player.
Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!
Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.
