You might hear commentators say that a good soccer rivalry is like a war. But what about when the two sides are officially at war? That’s what’s going to happen on Wednesday in Shanghai as North Korea takes on South Korea in a World Cup Qualifying match. You call Mexican soccer fans lobbing bags of urine at US players a “bitter rivalry”? Nice try - next time try kidnapping thousands of citizens.

The match is supposed to be a home match for North Korea, but it was moved after the government refused to let the South Korean national anthem play or flag to be raised. North Korea are the surprise leaders in their qualifying group after beating the United Arab Emirates 2-1 on Saturday, and a win against their rivals would put them in the driver’s seat for their first berth since 1966, when they knocked out Italy in arguably the best upset in World Cup history.

Since it is technically a North Korean home match, they get to control the ticketing (and get the profits). While you would think that they would want as much money as possible (or short of that, to set the tickets in bags of wheat and rice), they would rather have no one attend rather than have the majority of fans be South Koreans. Thus, as the KOREA TIMES reports, the ticket prices are a bit excessive.

How much so? Top tickets are going for around $200, almost five times what South Korea charges for the best seats to World Cup Qualifiers. Seeing as though the average income in North Korea is less than $2,000 a year, I don’t imagine that it will feel about as much like a “home game” for the North Korean players as a weekday afternoon game does for the Florida Marlins. But at least they aren’t charging a PSL fee on top of the $200 for seats.

As for the match itself, South Korea will be without injured Manchester United player Park Ji-Sung. But North Korea will also be without the man who certainly is their best player, The Great Leader Kim Jong-Il. I mean, if the guy can shoot 38 under par his first time playing golf, I’m sure he could score four or five goals in a soccer match without wrinkling his pajamas. But no headers - do you know how long it takes to do that hair?