Historically, unconquered land is at a premium in South Korea and woe betide the foreign foot that might dip a dastardly toe upon its precious surface. However, General Yeonuk sat back in his plastic garden chair yesterday and surveyed the take over of his territory by the Irish as calmly as if he was watching the water level rise in his bath tub.

He was very pleased, said his interpreter and second in command, Colonel Kim Yong Bin. He hoped they would have a pleasant stay.

The General is the commander of the Sanggok dong regiment of the South Korean Army who are based at Kyungki do Sungnam City and train at the nearby Sang Mu Military Sports Facility. For the next few days at least, however, his 700 soldiers are taking second place to Ireland’s 22 World Cup warriors who are training daily at the grounds in preparation for engagement with the Spanish enemy on Sunday.

The impressive sports facility is about 10 miles from central Seoul along a drive that sees the views undergo a transformation from high rise jungle beneath grey haze to lush green landscape of small plots, cultivation tunnels and densely covered hills basking under blue sky.

The distinctive hills and the sound of a helicopter approaching from behind leave visitors with the urge to hum the theme from MASH and yell “incoming wounded” just to see what would happen.

General Yeonuk would surely not see the humour in it. The young men under his command are still dealing with 50 years of fall out from the drawing of a dotted line along the 38th parallel where South Korea ends and North Korea begins.

However, yesterday was not a day to be dwelling on such things. “The Irish are the first foreigners to exercise on our field,” said Col. Yong Bin, emulating the pride evident in his boss’s voice. “It was finished only 20 days ago so this is historic time. The arena over here was used for the wrestling in the 1988 Olympics,” he added quickly of his own accord, knowing, like a good soldier, that his general would have said it if he’d thought of it.

The sports park is also home to baseball, athletics and golf though, according to the young off duty soldiers who sat watching the Irish squad work on muscles that have been on holiday since last Tuesday night, though access to the driving range is normally restricted to those with stripes on their shoulder.

Not all their colleagues were on observer duty. Others were kitted out in fetching purple tracksuits and busy moving the goalposts around. Or at least trying to look busy because really the goalposts were fine as they were and, besides, the team are well used to doing the bit of donkey work themselves.

From Under 8s to under contract for millions, hauling the goalposts around a training pitch is a great leveller. So too is the experience of discovering a computer programmer with poor muscle tone has been mistaken for you. Not that it bothered said programmer one bit to have a group of local girls believe he was Robbie Keane. Ah yes, the fans are back, and while the players were working out, the first green shirts in Seoul were beginning to make an appearance at O’Kim’s Irish Bar.

Around 5,000 fans are expected to travel, according to FAI general secretary Brendan Menton but he warned he’d underestimated the scale of the green army before. General Yeonuk could be going on full alert yet.