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As Justin McCurry reports, one football club is playing a small role in helping north-east Japan recover from national tragedy
For weeks after the double natural disaster that devastated Japan’s Tohoku region on March 11, it looked as if the J-League season would be brought to a premature end for the first time in its 19-year history. The earthquake badly damaged grounds belonging to three clubs, while Vegalta Sendai were counting the cost in dead or missing supporters – victims of the ensuing tsunami.
Known for his eccentric wardrobe and time in Brazil, Miura is now breaking records in Japan. Simon Coterill explains
Now that Shunsuke Nakamura has returned from Europe and Hidetoshi Nakata has retired, Japanese “sakka” is looking for a new leading man. Competing are Borussia Dortmund’s new talisman Shinji Kagawa and CSKA Moscow’s Keisuke Honda, whose World Cup goals, bleached-blond hair and penchant for expensive fashion make him the favourite. Whoever lands the role will be the latest to replace Japan’s first football superstar, Kazuyoshi Miura. Now aged 43 Miura is still playing professionally, seemingly unwilling to relinquish his limelight.
Dear WSC
So, following Man Utd’s exit from the Champions League at the hands of Bayern Munich, Sir Alex Ferguson saw fit to make the following comment regarding players influencing a referee, in particular to getting an opponent dismissed: “They got him sent off – everyone ran towards the referee. Typical Germans”. I couldn’t help but think back to Derby v Man Utd at Pride Park in the late 1990s and an incident I witnessed just yards from where I was sitting. I distinctly remember Gary Neville instructing the referee, Mike Reed, to send off Derby’s German defender Stefan Schnoor for a foul he had committed shortly after having already received a yellow card. Reed had walked away and wasn’t going to take further action until United’s players forced him to change his mind. To double check my memory I found the following match report on the Independent’s website for the match on November 20, 1999: “Stefan Schnoor, admittedly, invited his own dismissal, ploughing through Dwight Yorke in the 40th minute after being cautioned for dissent moments earlier. What enraged Derby was that when it seemed Mike Reed was undecided about a second yellow card, and the automatic red, David Beckham and Gary Neville ran over in an apparent attempt to pressure the referee into banishing the defender". It’s a bit of an irony, isn’t it, Man Utd’s English players talking a referee into sending off a German. Perhaps, if this behaviour is “typically German” in 2010, they are just emulating the behaviour of English players in an English team, Manchester United, who have been practising it for over ten years.
Andy Kitchen, Derby