Memories of a World Cup
Tokyo, Japan
I remember the last world cup – as I spent most of it in Japan. Football was relatively new to Japan then (the J league started in 1993) and the mere fact that Japan had made it to the finals was a major cause for celebration. Not coming home with that famous gold trophy tucked into their hand baggage was simply unthinkable.
It was a fantastic time to be in Tokyo and even the commuters on my daily Shinkansen train into town had a lightness of step that I never saw before or again. Tokyo was suddenly awash with tittering young girls in football shirts with names like Suker and Dechamps plastered all over them. The dull national newspapers were suddenly plastered with a mass of orange as the Dutch went on a goal rampage which looked like ending with an inevitable place in the final, and the country steadied itself for the national team’s first run out. People threw off the shackles of a sometimes brutal life and, for the first time, basked in the universal brotherhood that is football. One night an impromptu kick-about even broke out on the platform at Tokyo station.
All throughout the day of June 14th I was stuck in a board meeting. The weather was one of these steamy Tokyo summers – overcast with oppressive humidity and everyone felt lethargic. The meeting rumbled on as ream after ream of company reports and financial information were presented, I slipped into a stupor and awoke after what seemed like an eternity, only to find that the day had got hotter and more oppressive. As lunch was served in neat lacquered lunch boxes, the CEO cleared his throat and silencing his board asked me, if it wouldn’t trouble me too much, if I might explain the off-side rule.
That night we cemented our relationship in a dimly lit Tokyo bar. Smashed on saki we watched a stunning lob from Batistuta catch the Japanese defence on the back foot and send the ball spinning into the net. The CEO, who was now at the drooling stage of drunkenness, bought another huge round of drinks, and declared confidently that Japan would learn from their mistakes and give Croatia ‘a damn good kicking’.
The day before the Coatia game our director called us into the grand assembly hall and asked us to remember the struggle that was currently taking place in France and that we should support the team as feverishly as possible. Headscarves with ‘Go Japan, Go’ would be made available and everyone should drink Kirin (the official World cup beer). I had never seen him so worked up and it left most of the Japanese workers confused and wondering if the old boy had finally lost the plot.
On the 20th of June we were packed like sardines into the office TV room where an ancient large screen had been jerry rigged up especially for the match (the lack of technological sophistication was a constant source of surprise for me in Japan). It was another hot, humid night and by the time I arrived most of the Japanese were a long way down the road to drunkenness. After the teams were led onto the pitch and presented to the dignitaries the national anthems were played. In unison the whole room stood up and with hands on heart and heads bowed sung along to the melancholic sounds of a piped band. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck tingle as waves of pure nationalistic pride washed over the room.
A great first half with Japan showing some real skill and ambition was somewhat marred by Namai getting booked and the accounts director being sick over the pretty young girl from the Planning Department. Those Japanese who weren’t already bombed out of their minds cocked a knowing wink at me and whispered, ‘Bring on England…’. The second half was hardly an inspiring game but Japan were unlucky not to find the back of the net on several occasions. At times Croatia looked to be a mess and I half begun to wonder if Japan might just sneak it. But, on 77 minutes, the golden boy of a million Japanese schoolgirl’s shirts, Suker slammed the ball into the back of the net and effectively ended Japan’s world cup. I remember looking round and seeing a sea of collective horror ripple round the room. The unthinkable had happened. The next day no one turned up for work until mid afternoon, claiming that they had been suffering from hangovers (a perfectly legitimate excuse for not going to work in Japan).
My own world cup dissolved into a series of messy drinking incidents. When Holland played I ran around town in my Dutch shirt waving the large inflatable tulip my Dutch in-laws had given me, and when England played I stood at the bar of my local inn and sung my head off for our boys. When we beat Colombia I ran down the street streaming a large Union flag behind me and was nearly arrested by a bemused traffic policeman, whom I vaguely remember kissing. When Michael scored that wonderful goal against Argentina I cried, I really did. Lordy, I almost bought a round of drinks…
The last game for Japan took place on the 26th of June against Jamaica. ‘Undoubtedly we will win,’ said the national press. Local radio broadcast a programme with 10 things you didn’t know about Jamaica:
and the country got ready to at least salvage some national pride.
I was halfway up a mountain at the time on a training course with a bunch of stuffy CEOs. It didn’t really have the potential to be a great World Cup night, but industrial quantities of beer had been ordered. Kick off was 1am Japan time and yet somehow most people had managed to stay sober enough to enjoy the game. As the magic hour approached a hundred of us, all in wooden geta and light summer yakatas crammed into the hotel’s small TV room for a passionate and rousing rendition of the national anthem which was followed by 100 beer cans cracking open.
The game kicked off and almost immediately a Japanese player was booked for dissent, but once their nerves had settled down the Japanese played the beautiful game in a beautiful flowing manner which wouldn’t have looked out of place on the streets of Rio. Once or twice they even came close to picking the intricate off-side trap set by the Jamaicans as a hundred sweaty brows leant closer to the flickering screen urging their team forward, willing them to find the back of the net. On 39 minutes disaster struck and the Jamaicans blasted the ball past the Japanese keeper muting both the enthusiastic crowd of Japanese who had made the long trip to France and my drunken colleagues.
Just after half time the Japanese keeper was once again picking the ball from the back of the net and wondering if he could apply for Peruvian citizenship – this was not how it should be, said the CEO sitting next to me. Nakayama did grab a last minute consolation goal but it was too little too late. The dream, for at least this year, was over, and Japan would be coming home empty handed. One of the senior directors slumped onto my shoulder and let rivers of tears stream down his cheeks. As Shanks once said, “football isn’t a matter of life or death…it’s more important than that.”
Now another world cup has come round, and I am older and (hopefully) wiser. I shall, of course, be cheering our boys home to victory but I shall keep an eye on Japan and remember that fantastic summer when they joined the universal brotherhood of football and life really was worth living.
