The North Korean women’s football club Naegohyang Women’s FC arrived in South Korea on Sunday as it prepared for a regional tournament appearance, marking the first visit by North Korean athletes in eight years. The team’s arrival at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, followed their flight from China and drew public attention, including shouts from activists and cellphone videos from nearby residents.

The club brought a delegation of 39 players and staff to South Korea. The team members did not make comments as they arrived, according to the report from Seoul.

Their path through the tournament now turns to Wednesday’s semifinal against Suwon FC Women. The match is scheduled for Suwon, a city south of Seoul, in the Asian Football Confederation Women’s Champions League.

The encounter also reflects the intermittent role sports have sometimes played in inter-Korean contact. The two Koreas have at times used athletics to create “feel-good” moments when relations were more amicable, but outside observers said this appearance is unlikely to indicate a broader political thaw.

Lee Wootae, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, cautioned against reading too much into the visit. He said, “We should be cautious about interpreting their visit to South Korea as a sign of an improvement in South-North relations,” adding, “It would be more accurate to view this as a limited South-North Korean contact within the framework of international sports.”

The sports visit comes against a backdrop of continued tensions. The AP report said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has maintained a confrontational stance toward South Korea, including language in which Kim has called South Korea his country’s principal enemy and efforts to remove the notion of shared statehood and establish a hostile “two-state” system on the Korean Peninsula.

In recent years, the two Koreas have also seen diplomacy around North Korea’s nuclear program collapse after a U.S.-led effort ended in 2019. North Korea has since carried out weapons tests to expand its nuclear arsenal, and it has rebuffed South Korean and U.S. offers to restore diplomacy.

The AP report said South Korea’s current liberal government, led by President Lee Jae Myung, has espoused rapprochement with North Korea. It said the government will provide financial support to civic groups planning a 3,000-member cheering squad for Wednesday’s match involving both North and South Korean teams.

The civic groups said in a joint statement that they would “enthusiastically cheer for them by chanting the names of both teams and their players” while “faithfully adhering to AFC guidelines.” The plan aims to keep the cheering organized within the tournament’s rules even as the governments’ relationship remains strained.

On the field, Naegohyang Women’s FC arrives as a strong youth-level program in women’s football. The report said North Korea has won the Under-17 Women’s World Cup four times and the Under-20 Women’s World Cup three times. It also noted that Naegohyang Women’s FC defeated Suwon FC Women 3-0 in the group stage in Myanmar last November.

The other Wednesday semifinal will feature Melbourne City FC against Tokyo Verdy Beleza. The final is scheduled for Saturday at a stadium in Suwon.