Having been pummeled in Cape Town by a rampant Portugal, the world’s most secretive football team is preparing to go to where you suspect they wanted to be all along – home. The Portugal manager, Carlos Queiroz, may have praised the South Koreans for refusing to resort to tough tackling but the man in charge of North Korea, Kim Jong-hun, would probably have preferred it if they had. They now come up against an Ivory Coast side who have to put more goals past them than Portugal did to have a chance of qualification.

The collapse at Green Point was almost as disastrous for the Ivory Coast as it was for the Korean keeper. The task facing Sven-Goran Eriksson is to beat North Korea and not only trust that Brazil beat Portugal but that the afternoon produces a 10-goal swing in their favour. Basically, if Brazil win 3-0, then Ivory Coast will have to score seven past the Koreans. For a team whose main striker, Didier Drogba, still looked out of sorts in the 3-1 defeat by Brazil, this is an almost impossible order.

There are likely to be few subtleties in this game. North Korea will defend as rigidly as they always do, although for the first 29 minutes in Cape Town before everything collapsed around them, they looked as if they might score. The Ivory Coast will go all out for an avalanche of goals, although they should remember that few teams who go all out for huge victories ever get them and that against Portugal conceded six of their goals in two ten-minute spurts. Verdict: Ivory Coast to win but not by enough.