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Given the events of the past two weeks here, residents wouldn't be out of line for thinking its tough work being an enthusiastic World Cup football fan as millions of South Koreans turned their lives upside down to get behind their national squad.

In 2002, when Korea co-hosted the World Cup with Japan, local supporters filled stadiums and massed in front of large TV screens around the country, cheering relentlessly for their local team. For their efforts, Korea ultimately wound up with a fourth place finish, setting a record for an Asian nation.

Hopeful that Korea could build on its 2002 World Cup success, hundreds of thousands of Korean supporters with their signature red T-shirts, painted red faces and red horns, rocked up to outdoor venues around the country to watch their team defeat Togo, then draw with France and finally lose 2-0 to Switzerland, eliminating the team from the tournament.

The games were thrilling and the venues a sea of red, but the matches cost hundreds of thousands of fans precious sleep as the last two broadcasts started during pre dawn hours, 4 a.m.to be exact. The first match, against Togo, kicked off at 10p.m. Korea time. Free events, Koreans had to stake out patches of grass or concrete as many as ten hours ahead of the matches to get a decent view of the broadcast. "It's worth it," says Sook Jung Oh, an elementary school teacher in the city of Ilsan. "Koreans think if we stick together, we'll do well."

Celebrated pop singers did their best to ramp up Korean pride, singing ditties and leading choreographed dance performances during pre game concerts. Factories and offices indulged supporters, tweaking the rules so workers could show up late after cheering on their World Cup team through the night.

On game days, the government extended its subway and bus services, while churches held prayer services in the middle of the night, just before play began. Local broadcasters ditched popular TV shows for round the clock coverage of the tournament.

Employer asked employees to don red T-shirts as a show of support for the national team. Thousands of police were marshaled to stadiums and other outdoor venues, where fans converged to watch the matches on large screen TVs and chanted in unison, Dae Han Min Guk, or Republic of Korea.

Korea's state-run Yonhap news agency reported that some one million fans flooded the nation's streets at 4 a.m. on Saturday for Korea's match against Switzerland. "The team worked as hard as it could and it is terribly sad, but we will be better for the next Cup," says university student Yun Ho Jeun, fighting back the tears moments after the game finished.

Theories abound as to why Koreans have embraced the World Cup with such alacrity. "They have waited for a long time for the rest of the world to give them some kind of recognition. As they've climbed the economic ladder it's been disappointing to them foreigners have not noticed them more" says Hank Morris, a resident of Korea since the 1970s.

For Korean youngsters, who came out in surprisingly large numbers to watch the matches, the tournament has clearly been more of a festival than a serious sporting competition with world-class play. Ee Bo Eun, 16, has no appreciation of the finer points of the game, but sports a huge smile when she explains why she and her four middle school friends trekked across Seoul around midnight to secure a patch of pavement for a game that wouldn't begin for another five or six hours. "It is just exciting to be here," says Eun, who watched the Togo and France matches at home with her parents.

Obviously, Korea was under enormous pressure to build on its surprising 2002 World Cup performance. Anything less, it feared, soccer aficionados might bill that Cup performance a fluke.

• Late nights and early mornings for fans intent on keeping up the momentum