(OT) FIFA World Cup Soccer Opens, Japanese Ref Effectively Gives Brazil an Opening Victory While Japan Loses to Ivory Coast

FIFA World Cup has started, and many sports fans in Japan seem to be losing sleep trying to catch the games.

Japan's all-star team lost today (6/14/2014) to Ivory Coast 1 to 2, in a match that had little to write home about.

But what floored me was not the Japanese team but the Japanese referee who presided over the opening game on June 12, 2014 between the host country Brazil and Croatia.

In that game, Japanese referee Yuichi Nishimura

- yellow-carded Brazilian player for elbowing a Croatian player in the face, instead of red-carded - a collective sigh of relief from the stadium;
- allowed a penalty kick on what looks to be a blatant dive (aka "simulation") by a Brazilian player;
- disallowed a legitimate goal by Croatia

In doing all these, Mr. Nishimura was aided by two sub-referees, who were also Japanese.

From UK's Daily Mail (6/12/2014; part):

Neymar escapes red card in World Cup 2014 opener as referee Yuichi Nishimura hands Brazil soft penalty after Fred appeared to dive

Brazil's poster boy clashed with Luka Modric in Sao Paulo opener

The Barcelona player appeared to elbow the Real Madrid man in first-half

Japanese referee Yuichi Nishimura brandished yellow to relief of host nation

Fred earned Brazil a soft penalty which Neymar scored to give Brazil lead

Nishimura ruled out a late Croatia goal for a foul on Julio Cesar by Ivica Olic

Croatia manager Niko Kovac blasted referee Yuichi Nishimura for his poor performance during the opening match of the 2014 World Cup.

The Japanese official had a night to forget, allowing Neymar to stay on the pitch following a cynical elbow on Luka Modric in the first-half, before awarding the tournament hosts a soft penalty and disallowing what looked like a legitimate equaliser by Croatia.

Kovac said Nishimura was out of his depth and that someone else should have been appointed to officiate if he wasn't up to the job.

Kovac said: 'I must say the referee was completely out of his depth.

'If someone's not up to scratch to referee the first game then find someone else. Two and a half billion people saw this wasn't a penalty.'

Yup. I saw it. But clearly not Japanese soccer fans in Japan, vast majority of whom tweeted how they supported the Japanese referee's decisions in the match and how proud they were of him for setting the standard for refereeing in this World Cup. At least in the world of Twitter, dissenting from that position doesn't seem to be allowed.

According to Yomiuri Shinbun's report, a major Brazilian newspaper (Folha de S. Paulo) is thanking the referee Nishimura for being part of the team.

AP reports that Croatian players claim Nishimura was speaking Japanese to them.

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#Radioactive Japan: Canada-Japan Women's Soccer Friendly Match to be Held in Fukushima City

Now, young women from Canada under the age of 20 are joining the US high school students and college students doing the cleanup volunteer work in Tohoku including Fukushima and the US decontamination businesses in dispelling the "baseless rumors" and making an appeal to the world that "Fukushima is safe" (as US Ambassador to Japan John Roos said).

NHK Kabun (culture and science division of NHK) tweets:

サッカー女子の２０歳以下のワールドカップが、来月、日本で開催されるのを前に、復興を支援しようと日本とカナダとの親善試合が福島市で開かれることになりました。

Women's World Cup Soccer [or football for European readers] under the age of 20 will be held in Japan next month. To support the recovery, a friendly match is planned between the Japanese team and the Canadian team in Fukushima City.

For reference, here's the radiation levels at parks in Fukushima City as of 7:40AM on July 5, 2012 (from this tweet) "New normal" for Fukushima City's parks nearly 16 months after the nuclear accident seems 1 microsievert/hour air radiation or higher:

The venue for the match must be the Shinobugaoka Athletic Field in central Fukushima City. The radiation level at Shinobuyama Park, about 500 meters west of the athletic field, is shown in the photo above as "1.517 microsievert/hour". The radiation level at the athletic field should be lower, because there are no trees shedding leaves on the athletic field and the city must have done some "decontamination" in November last year (I hope) when the women's Ekiden road race, also under the age of 20 event, was held in the city.

(Hmmm. As of November last year, the entrance to the athletic field was measured at 1.23 microsievert/hour... See my post here.)

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OT: World Cup Soccer Spain 0 Paraguay 0, 2nd Half

A penalty kick for Spain, Paraguay's goalie saved it, a diving (at least "highly embellished fall" as ESPN radio said) won another penalty, Spain kicked it in the net but negated, had to redo it, Paraguay's goalie saved it.

So it is still 0-0.

I have a feeling it will be either 1-0 via dive+penalty kick combo, or penalty shootout after overtime. A drama of penalty shootout would fit the Latin temperament, wouldn't it?

At least that would be less traumatic than 4-0 humiliation that Argentina just suffered at the hands (or rather, feet) of Germany.

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OT: World Cup Soccer Germany 4 Argentina 0

Diego Maradona's team was routed out of World Cup.

Here's Argentina's Martin Demichelis, left, and Germany's Miroslav Klose, who scored 2 goals today.


The picture is from ESPN Soccernet, which has a supposedly live radio coverage. I was listening to it, and watching the FIFA's simultaneous matchcast - which is basically a live texting. FIFA's matchcast said Germany scored, but ESPN's radio was still taking about passing the ball. FIFA's matchcast said the game is over with final whistle, but ESPN's radio was saying the match is now in injury time.

So it's NOT LIVE!! I hate that. What's the point of delaying the "live" coverage by a few minutes? FIFA regulation or something? If that's the case, ESPN should have made that CLEAR on their website.

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OT: Japan 0 - Paraguay 0 Penalty Shootout

Now.

1-1.

Japan missed! Hit the cross-bar.

4-2 Paraguay

Now Paraguay wins...

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OT: World Cup Soccer Japan 3, Denmark 1

Japan is through to the Round of 16. Congratulations!

The World Cup Soccer has been more entertaining than the stock market these days.

There have been some big upsets. Italy and France not only did not make it to the final rounds, but couldn't win a single match. Germany lost a match to Serbia, Switzerland beat Spain. Though it couldn't make it to the finals, New Zealand (3 draws) played an excellent defensive soccer against strong teams (Paraguay, Slovakia, Italy).

Spain's fate will be decided by tomorrow's match against Chile. It looks like Spain's fate will also depend on how Switzerland play against Honduras. If Spain wins and Switzerland wins, top three of the group will have the same points (6). It will all come down to goal difference and goals scored. It will be exciting matches...

Highlights from Japan-Denmark match. Japan's three goals are just superb, particularly the third one!

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OT: World Cup Soccer Japan 2, Denmark 0, 1st Half

Too bad I don't have TV. It seems like a very active and exciting game. Japan's two goals were from free kicks. (FIFA's play by play commentary says Japan is the first country in 40 years to score goals from free kicks in World Cup.

For those like me without TV, here's FIFA's live update.

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