People keep comparing the size of the Korean economy to Japan's. In 2002, the year of the World Cup, Korea's GDP was exactly about 50% of Italy's.

Now, we are competing on almost equal footing.
All that's left is to surpass France, then the UK, and then Germany.
The difficult part is that Korea is lacking in population.
Whether it was during King Gwanggaeto the Great's conquest wars of Goguryeo or now,
population is still national power.
Our country's GDP cannot beat Indonesia's population power.
It's not that we need the land of the North; what we actually need is the population of the North.