The will to succeed: Made in Japan

Playing in front of a packed house – 66,000 at the Yokohama Stadium – they showed off all the skills their coach Phillippe Troussier has taught them. Short passes, tight, intricate movements, some delightful, accurate long balls – David Beckham would have been proud – and, underneath all the flair and flourish, the grit and determination to hold out against a Russian team desperate for an equaliser in the final quarter of the match.

Japan’s backbone is its midfield, where the three foreign-based players hover. Shinji Ono is the defensive lynchpin and also the creator of those long-range poasses. Junichi Inamoto is the hustler, always looking for a spare scrap that can be converted, like he did so beautifully yesterday.

And Hidetoshi Nakata struts the middle of the park, pulling the strings. Now tracking back to help the defense, now trying a little shimmy here, a feint there.

Two moments stick in the mind. First, a laser-guided missile from Ono, deep inside his own half, to release his forward. And on the 69th minute, after a half-minute of pirouettes, Nakata’s back-heel to an unmarked Ono. Sheer telepathy. Sheer joy to watch.

You might say the Russians are getting old, that the defense, especially, are beyond their sell-by date. But this is Russia, this is the World Cup, and you don’t come here on repiutation alone. Ask the Dutch.

It seemed initially that the Japanese, smaller physically, would be muscled off the park by their muscular opponents. But they had one quality that compensates for the lack of others: a fighting spirit.

And so, as the match progressed, they fought like devils for every ball, often giving us the funny sight of seeing a diminutive blue-shirted figure one-on-one with a white giant. And winning.

Never was this fighting quality more evident than at the end when, marshalled splendidly by their skipper Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, they held their nerve and their line to defy and deny the Russians. It was inspiring stuff; too often have we seen skilful Asians win the game but lose the match, due either to fatigue or overconfidence or simply the inability to close the match down.

What made the occasion even more special was, of course, the legions of Japanese fans, an army of blue. They sang, chanted, waved, drummed…and produced first this enormous flag and then a huge blue shirt that covered most of one whole stand. And not the miss that heart warming sight of the Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi giving a hug to Hidetoshi Nakata.

There was one more sight to gladden the heart. My journey from Yokohama to downtown Tokyo (involving a bus ride, bullet train journey, two local train rides and then the subway) took an hour and three-quarters. That’s 15 minutes less time than it took me to reach Yokohama and is testament to the efficiency of the Japanese transport system. A football win is great news but no reason to delay public transport. That’s what has made this a great nation.

This was a memorable day for Japanese football but they kept things in perspective. After leading with the news for the next three hours or so, the sports channels went back to Basuburu, the French Open and NBA. Guess you can’t have it all.