Doha. Another day, another political tug-of-war — and another landslide victory so ecstatic it’s impossible to stand up for yourself.
On a normal afternoon, Japan would probably lose this match by five balls.
But we can say this: this was not the era of ordinary Japanese football.
One wonders what Sven Gehring said.
It has been 86 years since that classic report, that unforgettable match and that fateful Olympiad in Berlin.
A lot has happened – so to speak – since then. The world has burned, atomic bombs have been dropped, walls have been built, broken down and built again.
Nothing else has happened before. The sun has never set, the seas have not emptied, and the Japanese national soccer team has never defeated one of the world’s heavyweights in a World Cup match.
But wait here a little moment…?! This was the history book of yesterday we read from. Tonight we have to write a new brand.
As I write this, it has been some time since the final whistle here at the Khalifa International Stadium in West Doha. The Japanese players stood in the ring and held each other for a long time and deeply. It was as if they needed to confirm everything to themselves, reassuring each other that it had already happened.
There is no unimaginable feeling
In the bend, those who call themselves Ultras Nippon stand and sing on their drums, but even in the other sections, every backer remains dressed in blue. They want to thank their hero players again, of course, but apparently they also want to immortalize the moment. They pose for photos, ask for ticket stubs, and seem to see empty water bottles and bags of chips as some kind of souvenir.
For the outside world, not only was this a completely unimaginable sensation – Saudi Arabia was not against Argentina – but for Japan it was the kind of victory they had been waiting for for decades. In less than ten minutes, they lost a championship in a row and turned it into something for the storybooks.
Like all truly memorable twists, it was a change of scenery that really lacked logic.
Midway through the second half, the only questions left seemed to be how big Germany’s victory would be, and how many goals they would score.
Havertz’s goal disallowed, Gnabry hit the crossbar and Gundogan hit the post and Musiala was finished with a World Cup classic.
Only once did they get the ball into the net – properly – and that was when Ilkay Gundogan conceded a penalty. He did it with rainbow colored shoes.
For a long time, this also seemed to be the entire summary of this afternoon. The match is out of the match. Mouths covered in a team photo, rainbows on warm-up jackets, rainbows on football boots, and an interior minister wearing a rainbow armband next to Gianni Infantino on the podium.
Germany is not a football nation that silently chews anything.
Historically unique viewing figures in Germany
I’m not much of an industry analyst, but if I understand the numbers from home correctly, Swedish TV viewership fell from 743,000 to 618,000 if we compare World Cup premieres in 2018 and 2022.
That would mean a drop of just over 16 percent, which is certainly not something to throw away.
However, the dropout rate was half of what it is in Germany. There, the number of premieres dropped by a whopping 34 percent, and the trend just kept coming.
Since the opening performance, no other World Cup match has even been able to reach five million German viewers, and these are historically unique figures based on a cut that I don’t think is matched anywhere else in the world. During the tournament, German viewers usually have more than ten million viewers even during the regular evening matches.
The power has come from below.
Nowhere else in Europe is the support movement so well organized, influential and vocal as in Germany. It is the largest and most important youth culture in the country at present, and when it is really needed, it has a cohesive weight that forces the authorities to listen.
“If you love soccer, turn off the TV,” read some of the signs in Borussia Dortmund’s huge Südtribune during the final round of the league before the World Cup break. “If you’re watching Qatar 2022, you’re complicit too,” Werder Bremen and Ostkorff declared.
Turnout was almost unanimous. Similar messages were projected simultaneously across the country, by organized fans of, among others, Bayern Munich, Hertha Berlin, Freiburg, Wolfsburg, Augsburg, Nürnberg, Kaiserslautern, 1860 Munich and Duisburg. German football showed impressive off-field strength today – but it fell heavily on the grass.
On the other hand, Japan’s national team captain Hajime Moriyasu deserves full praise for the game-changing coaching, which has gradually transformed the game by stealth.
Active training is really just a first name. He fumbled and looked, changing formation once, then changing formation again. He was out with three players before the hour mark, then he was out with two more.
Two of those substituted are Ritsu Doan and Takuma Asano, two of the many Japanese players who are around every day in the Bundesliga. One scored two goals in 15 matches for Freiburg this fall, the other mostly injured at bottom club Bochum.
Two quick goals after that, they are national champions.
I have no idea what TV numbers are like in Japan, but I’m sure of one thing. They will be much higher the next time this feat is played by a team.
At the moment I definitely feel like it’s something I can handle.
FIFA World Cup matches Thursday, November 24:
11.00 Switzerland and Cameroon 14.00 Uruguay and South Korea 17.00 Portugal and Ghana 20.00 Brazil and Serbia