"My fellow rice-eating countrymen, today we play our infernal enemy the English. Yes, the English, the very same effeminate butter-eaters we fought in the jungles of Burma, the streets of Singapore and on the Bridge over the River Kwai. The honour of the Japanese nation rests upon your young soldiers, my samurai friends. For the nation, that land of the rising sun we call home, we shall do more than just play a soccer game today. We will announce to the world that the sleeping giant of the beautiful game has awoken, and the world will hear our mighty loar, eh, roal, sorry, loal, goddamn 'l's and 'r's, our mighty shout. When this game is over your names will be uttered in the same breath as those other giants of our country, Mr. Toyota, Mr. Sony and Godzilla.
For it will a be a game, nay, a battle of honor, steeped in the tradition of the samurai clans of old. We will lose, yes, I am sorry to say, we will. But valiantly. And with great honor.
For I have determined that we will lose by 2 goals to 1. No, no, my young Bushido's, do not shed any tears, no matter how honorable. For defeat is merely a lesson in learning how to win.
And it will be our defeat, our own honorable defeat, for we shall score all the goals..."
Not too sure how they managed it, but in their last warm-up game to England before heading to the World Cup, the Japanese managed the footballing equivalent of hari-kiri. They did indeed lose 2-1 to England, and yes, its true, managed to score all the goals in the game too.
Personally, I think their just messing with the minds of their group opposition, I mean how do you prepare to play a team that seems intent on banging the ball in to the nearest available net, regardless of which side's it is?
Matters haven't been helped by Coach Okada's rather rash promise that Japan will make the last 4 of the competition. It would be the equivalent of Kevin Ryan, the Carlow Hurling manager, telling the media that he has already penciled in an appearance at Croke Park for the first Sunday in September.
June 14th, Japan versus Cameroon - should be a (honorable) cracker.
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