Name: Jimu Sama

Location: Japan, but not in the hub of things in central Tokyo, more in the heart of the people’s industrial centre Kawasaki, home of the frighteningly mediocre Frontale of the frighteningly mediocre J-League.

Position: Juan-Carlos Valeron-esque flair support for pacy strike pairing, eye-of-a-needle sliderule ability

Instruction: Hippo’s Far Eastern correspondent. Assigned to the tricky region of Japan to take a peek at a different people’s preparation for the biggest advertising opportunity for soft drinks for the next 4 years.

Ever since Gary Lineker smelt the coin and decided to leave Tottenham Hotspur, one of the true pedigree teams of world football in the last 30 years, for minnows Nagoya Grampus Eight, Japanese soccer (as it’s known here) has been on the up and up on the domestic, Asian and international scene. Such luminaries of the game including Lineker, Patrick Mboma and Kazayuki Toda (another fine Tottenham veteran: 2 games played then punted off to Holland) have plied their trade in the crazy world of artificially supported economy and massive political fraud. Although roundly humbled in their opening gambit in USA 94, Japan’s national team (which is scarily supported rabidly by almost every national, unlike the woeful support for the domestic competition, the J-League) has grown in stature in the last 10-12 years, culminating in a beautifully impressive and thoroughly deserved share of the spoils in last year’s Confederation’s Cup encounter with the mighty Brazil. Pace, close interplay and good organisation are the strong points of the Nippon Nationals, now supported by a greater knowledge of the world game with internationally-based stars such as Hideotoshi Nakata and Shunsuke Nakamura. And of course there is the Zico factor. Still blatantly unable to string 3 words in Japanese together, the man has had the national press calling for his head after a string of sorry performances in the qualifying phase, such as the painful last-minute victories against pitifully weak teams, namely North Korea and Oman. In the end making the finals has been enough for the man to keep his job, and the draw may favour him if this is to remain fact after the tournament, as no Japanese fan believes they will progress from what looks to be a rather daunting group, where Herculean performances will be vital for the first time in a while in competitive competition, because nobody really cared about the confederations thing did they?

I look forward to spewing Hippo with a wealth of football fish heads from the land of the rising sun and insanely long office work hours. For now, watch Bolton Wanderers and West Bromwich Albion as homework assignments.

Jimu Sama

This entry was posted on Monday, March 6th, 2006 at 3:50 pm and is filed under Postcard from Kawasaki. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Return to home page.