They are the lowest-ranked team in the World Cup, but the squad are well-drilled – most of them are from the Korean People's army

It was 17 hours after North Korea bravely lost to the mighty Brazil last week before the people back home were allowed to watch the match on the country's only TV channel. While footage showed residents in the capital, Pyongyang, cheering Ji Yun-nam's late goal, North Korea's official news agency offered a predictably strait-laced description of the game: "From the outset of the match the two teams fought a seesaw battle," it reported. "The DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] footballers created good shooting chances, not losing their confidence even after losing two goals."

North Korea is the lowest-ranked team to qualify for this year's tournament, and emotions in the stadium were running high even before the match, with the team's best player, Jong Tae-Se, breaking down in tears during the national anthem. This is, apparently, a bit of a habit for Jong who, despite being born in Japan and playing club football there, has demonstrated his devotion to the grandfatherland by spurning far more lucrative opportunities to represent World Cup rivals Japan or South Korea.

Given the collective ethos of North Korea, residents in Pyongyang say most people there know very little about individual players on the national team. This was also the case at a North Korean restaurant in Beijing last week, where the staff said they were rooting for their nation in South Africa, but were flummoxed when asked which player they preferred. "I can't say which player is best. The entire team is good," said a waitress who professed to be a football fan, between serving dishes of cold noodles and spicy bibimbop.

Football is, however, the biggest sport in North Korea, and the streets of Pyongyang go quiet each Sunday when the state broadcaster airs games (never live) from the English Premiership, Italian Serie A or eastern European leagues. Drinking is popular there too, and, while knocking back chunky bottles of Taedong beer, locals stand around in bars to discuss scores and the occasional match reports they read in the state-run sports paper.

The term "unknown quantity" does not even begin to describe the innocence and mystery of the game in North Korea, a country still technically at war with the US and which has largely resisted the wave of cultural globalisation that has swept the rest of the planet. "The big difference between football in North Korea and other countries is that nobody knows anything about it," says Simon Cockerell of Koryo Tours, which has organised trips to the isolated nation. "Even on the Fifa website, there is no definitive list of club champions. Many people in North Korea are unaware of which team is top of the league. They just take each game as a standalone competition."

Usually, the dominant club side is April 25, named after the founding date of its backer – the Korean People's army. In keeping with a heavily militarised society, this is the club that supplies more players to the national side than any other. Defences do not come much better drilled.

North Korea blanked their way to South Africa in their 14 qualifying games, notching up five 0-0 draws and conceding more than a single goal only once. "We are playing football made of speed and good technique combined to the standards of the modern game, which include great physical strength," said the manager Kim Jong-Hun – another April 25 veteran. "We fear no one."

Which is just as well, given that North Korea have had the misfortune to be drawn in this World Cup's "group of death". After losing by only one goal to Brazil, the most successful team in World Cup history, they today require at least a draw against well-fancied Portugal to have any hope of progressing. Their efforts will be backed by a small group of identically dressed supporters who, according to reports, may be Chinese actors hired to play the role of North Korean fans.

History, as we know, offers some hope: the last time North Korea qualified for the World Cup finals, in England in 1966, they pulled off arguably the greatest upset in the tournament's history by beating favourites Italy 1-0. The scorer of that goal, Pak Do Ik, is the closest the country has to a footballing hero, and his team's exploits won over many neutral fans, particularly in Middlesbrough where they were based.

"I learned that football is not only about winning. Wherever we go, playing football can improve diplomatic relations and promote peace," said Pak in Game of Their Lives, a British-made documentary about the 1966 North Korean team.

Nostalgia for 1966 remains as strong in North Korea as it is in England, but a surprise will be more difficult this time around. Not only has the country's economy – then one of the most advanced in Asia – slipped backwards, but the famine of the 1990s battered the nutritional intake of a generation.

Yet now, as then, North Korea will trust that speed and endurance can somehow prevail. "They're a tough bunch who play at a very high tempo," says Nick Bonner, the documentary's co-producer. "It is like that scene in Spinal Tap, where the band puts every dial on their equipment at the limit. The North Koreans play football the same way. If the max on the dial is 10, then they will try to play at 11."