Last week in the first part of this article I raised the question whether Baseball or Football are the the number one sports in Japan. I explained how Baseball made it into the country and became popular all over the island. Today I'm going to talk about Football and how it made up in the last decades.
Football (サッカー sakka) also made it into the Empire early on, but in the beginning did not make it beyond a university sport. After the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964, however, it finally spread all over the islands.
With the German Dettmar Cramer as sports director, the Japanese selection even managed a 3:2 victory against the favored Argentinians. And at the next tournament 1968 in Mexico the Japanese squat grabbed themselves the bronze medal. Since then, the men's national team has been on a sporting rollercoaster ride, the goals set could not always be achieved, especially at the last World Cups.
The women, on the other hand, were all the more successful, which they impressively demonstrated by winning the World Championships in 2011. After the great destruction caused by the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami, this was of course balm for the soul of a maltreated country.
For decades, club football was rather semi-professional until the J-League was finally founded in 1992.
The Japanese professional league started it's first season in 1993 and had its first heyday right at the beginning, in which it was even able to lure some German Word Champions such as Pierre Littbarski and Guido Buchwald into the land of the rising sun.
These days must have been really exciting for the players and fans alike.
But the big highlight was surely the World Cup 2002, which Japan and South Korea hosted together as the first Asian countries.
The whole country had suddenly been diagnosed with football fever, from all sides you could only here one topic and the big stars of the big but so distant arenas were suddenly close enough to touch. The rest of the world was also fascinated by the enthusiasm and hospitality of the Japanese. The hosts even ended their group as group winners, but eventually lost out to Turkey in the round of 16. Nevertheless, it was an attention-getting success and a stimulating event that gave football here in Japan another very important boost.
Unfortunately, the last few years were not quite as thrilling for the national team and most of the time they were behind their own goals. The World Cup in Brazil in particular, with the last place in the group games, was a drain on Japanese self-confidence.
But that didn't harm the football enthusiasm in the country at all. The famous leagues of Western Europe are also the big role model here and more and more professional Japanese players have managed to establish themselves even in the German Bundesliga.
The Japanese players' willingness to run and their willingness to endure as well as their understanding of the game are rightly appreciated by many coaches.
Shinji Kagawa is a well-known name for every football enthusiast in Japan and also in Germany, and his continued success contributes a lot to the very positive image of the Bundesliga in the country.
He is by far the most popular Japanese player in Germany.
And now that even Lukas Podolski is finishing his successful career with Vissel Kobe, that brings the two football nations Germany and Japan even closer.
But back to the initial question, what attracts more?
This question is probably very difficult to answer. Historically, baseball is clearly the number one. Baseball will also be the winner in terms of the number of active (and inactive) players.
And both, baseball and football are looking forward into a promising future. The numbers of active players seem to be stable or even growing. And Japanese baseball players in the American MLB as football players in the big European leagues add more and more fuel to the already existing excitement.
But especially in recent times football has been able to make up for a lot of ground and if you look at the schools, you can see the players of the future are already practicing. So I would call it a head to head race.
Not only the boys, but also many girls have been infected and motivated by the success of the "Nadeshiko Japan", the Japanese women's team. With their world champion coup in 2011, they are a huge step ahead of the "Samurai Blue", the men's team.
According to my own, very subjective observations, football could soon overtake baseball, at least in terms of active players. More and more boys and girls are drawn to the many teams that exist at all high schools and junior high schools throughout the country. Many of these young players would like to practice their favourite sport at university, as long as they can combine sport and study to some extent.
And football has also caught up with the fans, even though there are not always sold-out stadiums to be found in the J1 League.
The photo on the right shows fans of Urawa Reds, who have some of the most fiery and loudest supporters in Japan.
And if the domestic league won't be enough there is no reason to be desperate.
Because as long as they have cable TV, the Japanese can of course also watch the games of the European leagues and thus the famous football stars on your own home screen.
For many, this is often more interesting than their own league, although they wouldn't say it too loud, of course.
Pride meets melancholy.
This article was also published in my Scorum Sportblog. Have a look there, maybe this is something for you too.