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From The Newspaper (8) 　Soccer

November 10, 2022, 2022

Two articles in the newspapers of the 21st and 22nd of September were about the upcoming World Cup Soccer Games. The article of the 21st title was "Japan's soccer representatives, 30 members have gathered in Germany, final tune-up game against the American team." The story read, "Approaching the opening of the World Cup Soccer in Qatar in two months, the Japanese team is on tour in Germany, on the 20th they were practicing in Dusseldorf preparing for the practice match with the American team on the 23rd. Nagatomo (FC Tokyo), Gonda (Shimizu), and Souma (Nagoya) have recently joined, and all 30 members of the team have gathered. The team will also have a game with Ecuador. After the activities in Germany, they will select the last members, reinforcing their strategies." The article also mentioned about the test match they had with Tunisia in June, in which they lost the game 3-0. It introduced a comment of one of the players, "I think that cementing the attacking formations is important." Reading this comment, he wondered if at this stage, as a national team, it wasn't too late to think about formations? But, the next day's article explained more about this team's strategy, "In the practices in Germany, when they played in their practice games, they adopted a 4-5-1 formation, not the 4-3-3 formation which had been used since the middle of the World Cup's final preliminary round. If they can get a good feel of this formation, they will be able to use either of these formations, and it will be effective." He wasn't a soccer buff, but he could guess that in the 4-5-1 formation, '1' is an attacker, '4' are the defense players, and '5' are midfielders, although he wasn't confident about the word 'midfielder'. And, maybe the 4-5-1 is more defensive than the 4-3-3 because of fewer attackers, but is flexible because the 5 midfielders can both attack and defend. He hadn't watched the games with America and Ecuador, so he checked on the internet. The game with America, they won 2-0, the game with Ecuador, they tied 0-0. He also checked the summary videos on YouTube. In both games, the Japanese team's performances were good; their attacking and defending were smooth with no hesitation, so he was very relieved. A long time ago, he once watched almost every game from the World Cup Soccer Games. BS broadcasting had started and one of the channels gave its viewers chances to watch all of the games in that year of the World Cup. It was maybe the first time for this country's people to watch games of the World Cup like this. At that time, professional soccer teams hadn't existed yet and soccer wasn't so popular. He stayed up late and got up early in order to watch as many games as he could. He was amazed by the Russian team's physical strength and their powerful shots. He was amazed by a certain player on the French team, whose play was very elegant. He liked some teams, like Uruguay and Croatia, which were different from the other teams. He couldn't explain how, but their playing styles had their own originalities, and it fascinated him. He enjoyed various types of soccer at that time. But soon after, broadcasting of the World Cup games switched to cable TV, which meant he had to pay to watch, so he had lost the chance to watch whole games after that. From those days, his country's soccer situation has progressively changed little by little. The J-League started. After that, the national teams started to pass through the preliminary stages. Soccer has become popular in this country. On the 1st of November, the 26 members of the national team were announced. He was surprised that 19 of the 26 players are playing in foreign countries in each foreign league. Before the J-League, very few players had belonged to foreign teams. He also learned that this  time's participation in the World Cup  is the 7th time in a row. Japan (World Ranking : 24th) is in the 'E' Group in the first stage, and will play against Germany (World Ranking : 11th) on the 23rd, and with Costa Rica (World Ranking: 31th), and then with Spain (World Ranking : 7th). Of course, he hoped this country's team will pass through the 1st stage, but more importantly, he hoped that they will play with their own playing style.

No. 495




*reinforce :強化する
* cement :固める
*preliminary :予選の
*buff :マニア
*belong to :所属する
*participation :参加