Japan Echo Web

Last-Minute Changes Yield World Cup Success

Members of Japan’s national team (at May 30, 2010 match against England) ©J.LEAGUE PHOTOS

“In terms of how we played, I have no regrets at all. The players were really wonderful, and they’ve been truly proud of being Japanese and also representing Asia as a whole. They played until the end and I’m proud of them. But I didn’t manage to get them to win. That’s my responsibility. I wasn’t determined enough.” So spoke Okada Takeshi, coach of Japan’s national football team, at a press conference following his side’s defeat in a penalty shoot-out to Paraguay in the round of 16 at the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa.

While Okada’s remarks may have been tinged with disappointment, the performance and results of the Japanese team at this summer’s tournament were certainly worthy of praise. Japan had progressed to the last 16 only once before, when it cohosted the World Cup with South Korea in 2002. What is more, the pretournament expectations of Japanese soccer fans could hardly have been lower, with many predicting the team would be eliminated at the first hurdle by losing all three of its group-league games. Led by coach Okada, however, Japan managed to match such teams as England and Portugal in progressing from the group stage to the round of 16. This was a truly historic feat.

Far away in Japan, people’s opinions of the Japanese team and of Okada rose exponentially as the competition progressed. The TV ratings for live coverage of the match against Denmark are reported to have averaged 30.5% in the Kanto region, peaking at 41.3% at 4:58 AM. For a broadcast in the small hours of an ordinary weekday morning, these are extraordinary figures. A graph tracking Okada’s approval ratings on the Yahoo! Japan FIFA World Cup website, meanwhile, recorded support of 93% for the national team coach on the day after the team’s crucial clash with Denmark.

By way of contrast, just after Japan’s final warm-up match on home soil, against South Korea on May 25, support for Okada stood at just 16%. The public’s view of the coach turned 180 degrees in the space of just one month.

Sport is a winner-takes-all world, of course, so it might be argued that this turnaround was merely a natural reflection of the team’s improved results. Nevertheless, I cannot help but sense something unusual in the intensity with which the public and the media reversed their opinions of the Japanese team and its coach. There is nothing wrong with losing oneself in the joy of victory, of course. Yet I think the team’s unexpected success merits deeper consideration. Here I will examine what happened to the Japanese national team during that extraordinary month, reviewing the three matches that proved to be key turning points.