Time for revenge

Let's talk about soccer baby.
Japan is gonna have a chance to revenge on Australia this week.
I still remember the empty feeling after we lost against Down Under in the World Cup in 2006.

The country of Kangaroos is now in AFC, Asian Football Federation, and is going to become a big obscure for Japan in the World Cup preliminaries etc. Damn it.

The following article is what I wrote on my old blog about Japan's miserable lost against Australia.

Grab some tea and be ready to waste your time.

You'll see how much I love soccer.

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I expected that the Japanese national goalie, who I was talking about on my previous entry, would do an excellent job on the Japanese first match in the World Cup and be featured on the newspapers the following morning. He did appear in the paper but not in the way I had expected. As you might know, he screwed up.

Most people think we were defeated on account of the useless Zico. He carried out such incomprehensible substitution plans and his game plans were always one step behind. Look how smartly Hiddink, the coach of soccerroos, made right moves at the right time. Everybody knows that it was not only Zico but also Kawaguchi who was responsible for the collapse of the defense in the last 9 minutes. Giving up 3 points to the opposite team in last 9 minutes was like as if I was watching a baseball game, not soccer.

I hate to admit this but it was a story of loss that would definitely be held down from generation to generation just like the tragedy in Doha back in 1993. ( It was our final match of the preliminary for the World Cup in the US the next year. If we had won we would have made it to the US. We had one point lead against Iraq and everybody had no doubt that we would win. But, thanks to the Iraqi equalizer in the additional time, we lost.)

Why did he come out of the goal leaving it totally empty?? What was on his mind??
Sports journalists asked him why he did that and what he thinks about it now. He answered like this : I don’t think it was a mistake. We should have taken care of the ball after that but we couldn’t and that was the mistake.
Okay. If he says so. It’s no use crying over spilt milk anyway.

It’s a shame that he has never been the goalie in our winning or draw games in World Cup. When we won against Tunisia and Russia respectably and in the game against Belgium that ended in a draw in 2002, the Japan’s goalie was Narazaki, not Kawaguchi. When he was the goalie back in 1998 in France, we lost all the games.

However, in Asian Cup in 2004, Kawaguchi was like a GOD. At our quarter final against Jordan, both teams didn’t manage to decide the game in 90 minutes and it went into overtime. The extra 30 minutes wasn’t long enough to give victory to either of the two countries and it ended up going into penalty shootout. The first kicker was Japan’s Nakamura, and he missed it. The second kicker was Alex and he missed it too while the first three kickers of Jordan succeeded. When we were almost giving up the victory, there was a miracle brought in by the Super Goalie Kawaguchi. He saved the 4th shot of Jordan and our asses. The penalty shootout wound up a suddendeath as Jordan’s 5th shot went out too far from the goal. Kawaguchi saved the Jordan’s 6th shot amazingly after bomber-head Nakazawa’s shot had been saved. The last shot of Jordan hit the left post of the goal and the victory came into our hands. Of course it was not only Kawaguchi but also the other players who succeeded in the penalty kicks, but I remember how exciting it was to witness a miracle. Japan defeated Bahrain at semifinal and became the Asian champion after knocking down China at final whose supporters carried out anti-Japanese movements throughout the tournament.

So anyways, I believe that Kawaguchi will make a miracle again. He has to get back his honor both for his own sake and Japan’s sake. We had a miraculous 2-2 draw game against Brazil in Confederations Cup in 2004 as well but it is a story for another day.