Icciv's notes in Japan

Japan leave the tournament, England advance to the Quarter Finals

Over the past few weeks I've been watching the football closely. I watched Japan's game against Croatia, a match that really determined Japans future in the World Cup. As usual me, Lori and Melissa congregated in BB with the same crowd and settled in for a tense match. If I'm honest I was expecting Japan to get beaten from the off. They really didn't shine in their first game and I had expected them to beat Australia, I was quietly sure of Croatia's success. The game held alot more than I expected, with Japan playing a far stronger game than their first and coming away with a draw at the end of the 90 minutes. Unfortunately their 3-1 defeat by Australia means they were still at the bottom of the group. Their only chance of winning was if they beat Brazil by 3 goals or more and the Australia - Croatia match produces a draw. This evidently didn't happen, Brazil won 4-1. At least Japan scored a good goal.

The atmosphere in BB was a tad more aggressive than the last game as everyone knew the importance of this match. At the end of the game some people threw their drinks at the T.V., poor Melissa got a tad wet. I reassured her that if we were in a British pub and England had been beaten...it would probably be worse. I feel bad for all the people there who love football so much and have to see their team leave the tournament so early.

On Monday night I went to BB to watch the England-Ecuador game. I was very grateful that we are playing Ecuador. The thought of facing Germany at such an early stage gave me the jitters. That would not have been a match I could enjoy. I was still pretty nervous about the game because Ecaudor have been strong and England have been playing (as my dad would say) like a bunch of fairies. They did win the match, but were certainly not impressive. I'm also pretty gutted that Holland are out of the game after a defeat by Portugal. Holland were my back-up team and I had only seen one of their games so far. The whole time zone thing means that the 8pm games in England are on at 4am here, which sucks. This means that England will be facing Portugal on Saturday which I feel uncomfortable about because it was Portugal that got us knocked out of the European Cup two years ago. I also don't want to see that smarmy Ronaldo's face if they beat us again. I have to admit that even with all my support for England, I've still placed a bet on Argentina winning. I'm really hoping they beat Germany. Anyway, I'm having to put my Football watching on hold the rest of the second round because the matches aren't on till 12pm and quite frankly the late nights are killing me (I have to get up at 6.30am). I'll be ready to watch the quarter final on Friday and Saturday, looking forward to it.

Anyway, here are some photos from the first Japan game, when hopes were still high for Japans success.

This is from the first England match. Behind us is the World Cup decoration in BB. They asked me for a slogan, this is what I thought of.

Here is Kentaro covered in body paint and Shinya, the owner of BB.

A better shot of Kentaro's body art from the front.

Here is the back, I was told the meaning of the kanji.....but I forgot, sorry.

Here's everyone watching the match.


Me and Ipei before the match started.

Here's me and Nagisa (she hates photos, hence the camera avoiding)

Here's Genki holding on to Takuji.

posted by Icciv @ 11:19 am