Wa is Hell; or, In Our Country There is Problem, and that Problem is Transport
Posted on August 2, 2012 7:31 am
It’s not the biggest news in the women’s soccer portion of the Olympics, thanks to…oh, what’s her name…tip of my tongue…goalkeeper for the US. Tall woman.
Ah, I’ll remember it later. The big scandal this week is that Norio Sasaki ordered his team not to try to score against South Africa, to the umbrage of many.
Pia Sundhage, whose U.S. women’s team performed “the worm” after scoring a goal at Old Trafford says she would never instruct her team to try not to win – as Japan’s coach did in its final group game – out of respect for the sport.
Well played, Frank Isola.
Many have held this up as a disgrace to the Olympic ideal.
See, that’s me trying to be as droll as Frank Isola. The Olympic ideal has been a punch line since before most of us were born. I know I’m offending Beau Dure, but for the most part I really dislike the Olympics.
Wait a minute – no, I love the Olympics!
Even FIFA, though, has let roar a mighty “meh,” atypical of an organization that rarely resists the temptation of self-righteousness mixed with rampant control-freakery.
I hate to agree with FIFA, but I think they made the right call here.
No, it wasn’t elegant. And if Sasaki had simply said something along the lines of “We wanted to stay defensive at all costs,” or even lied about how disappointed he was in his ineffective offense, this would never have been a story.
There’s also the problem of FIFA kicking a team out of a tournament it doesn’t run. While a showdown between FIFA and the IOC would have been awe-inspiring, it’s not surprising that Sepp decided this was not the hill to die on. The hideous precedent of the 1982 World Cup would have loomed terribly large. Come to think of it, Oleg Salenko’s 1994 co-Golden Boot doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, but Cameroon was never sanctioned.
This was also a victimless crime. Japan didn’t take the place of a more deserving team. It would have been nice if South Africa had been able to punish the champions for their arrogance, but since that didn’t happen, there’s no one with any room to complain. Except for the few remaining believers in sportsmanship.
And even then, despite Sasaki’s confession, it’s not an open and shut case. Sasaki’s job isn’t to put a touchdown past South Africa, it’s to add a gold medal to his World Cup win. He’s playing a long game. Pia Sundhage has every right to denounce Sasaki, but no team goes full throttle every game. Sundhage has never had to fill out a lineup for a midweek Open Cup match between weekend road games.
I don’t think that Sasaki was trying to get a weaker opponent – there weren’t any weak opponents available, except for New Zealand. They would have gotten Brazil in the next two games anyway, or someone equally talented. France doesn’t strike me as a significantly easier challenge, either, to say the least.
So why did Sasaki do it? To avoid going to Glasgow. Because who would want to leave Wales? It’s a lovely place.
On paper, that’s the weakest of excuses. The world champions are afraid of a plane ride?
Apologies to the good and humble citizens of Glasgow, but Sasaki would have chosen to stay in Scotland and avoid Cardiff if that had been the option. A two hour flight sounds pretty small to us MLS fans, but that’s a blown day of either practice or rest.
Even then, it would be hard to sympathize, except it’s still possible to get this story when you Google “Japan women’s soccer coach.“ More plane rides are probably the last thing Japan needs, even comparatively short hops.
And isn’t this supposed to be the “London” Olympics? I realize there aren’t many soccer stadiums in London, which is why they had to rent a Welsh rugby field. But countries host World Cups, cities host Olympics.
And Sasaki, as it happens, was not paranoid about avoiding travel hassles:
Members of the Brazilian side were infuriated when they were stranded by the side of a highway for five hours as their team bus broke down on its journey to London the night before the Group E clash at Wembley Stadium. Britain won the game 1-0.
“It was a disgrace,” head coach Jorge Barcellos said. “I wasn’t impressed; a tournament of this size, and the delay in taking any initiative to resolve the situation was absurd.”
Brazil left its base in Cardiff, about 150 miles to the west of London, for its journey to the capital, but the trip was quickly disrupted when the bus pulled over to the side of the road with mechanical trouble.
At worst, Norio Sasaki should be fired. Oh, he won the World Cup for Japan last year? I meant fined. Talk of tossing Japan out of the tournament over this is just jive-turkeyism. If we want Japan out of the Olympics, then beat them.
It’s certainly no excuse for something as drastic as cheering for Marta.
Can you imagine the hilarity if the IOC threw some team out for playing for a tie, something that happens a thousand times a year in pro leagues. This has only been magnified into a story because of the media feeding frenzy that the Olympics have become.
Where’s that famous Japanese sense of “saving face” and honor we hear to much about? Long gone it appears.
Here’s to hoping Brazil shows them the consequences for being cute.
According to a gentleman (or lady) on the Nadeshio Thread, Sasaki did a very japanese think: He as the leader took the responsebility for the actions of his team. He asked them to do this and they delivered. This is a move that we do not see too often anymore. Or should the Nadeshiko have boycotted the game as the french male team did during the last world cup because the coach gave orders they did not agree with?
Let’s look forward to the Brazil game and forget about this.
Needless to say: GO NADESHIKO!!!!
I can do the Hully Gully! I can imitate Vin Scully!
I’m all for any controversy that can make sportscasters talk about badminton.
what happened at the 1982 World Cup?
That soccer stadiums in London line is sarcasm, right?
Sorry, I’m just unable to recognize sarcasm today.
The infamous Germany-Austria match happened in 1982 and is the reason all final games in the group phase of the World Cup are now played at the same time. Germany needed a win to go through, Austria was already through even with a loss because of goal difference. Alergia, who beat Germany, needed only an Austria win or draw to go through. Germany and Austria are rivals, so after Germany went up 1-0 early and BOTH teams then sat back and simply passed around the pitch to waste time — and keeper pass-backs were legal back then — it was a VERY long and boring game. This lead to intense speculation that the game was “fixed” but no one has ever broke that code of silence if it ever was.
The thing about the 1982 West Germany-Austria game is that after West Germany scored the goal, the structure of the competition led to the following incentives and disincentives. West Germany had absolutely no incentive to win by a greater margin, as any win against Austria resulted in West Germany winning the group, so West Germany had little incentive to score another goal. West Germany had a huge disincentive to allowing another goal, as anything but a win against Austria eliminated West Germany. Austria had only a little incentive to not lose by one goal against West Germany, as a one-goal loss would still advance Austria to the second round, and the projected draw for the group winner and group runner-up both included one winner and one runner-up from two other groups, so Austria had very little incentive to score another goal. Austria had a huge disincentive to lose by three or more goals, and thus a huge disincentive to allowing any more goals. So you put two teams on the field in a situation where scoring a goal doesn’t matter much, but conceding a goal could be catastrophic — you should not be surprised that both teams get pathologically defensive.
My baby loves the western movies.
I hate having to be the one to tell you this – truly – but FIFA DOES run the Olympic soccer tournament. Every bit of it. From beginning to end. The IOC shows up in time to pass out medals and collect the money.
I believe that’s true of all the events: the sports governing bodies run them.
Respect for the game? Really, Pia? This from somebody that brings along a player recently caught using banned substances.
That’s quite a high horse this idiot rides in on.
Also, Olympic soccer has just about always been played in multiple cities.
Bill, the IOC runs the Olympic tournament. Note that the IOC removed all the FIFA signage that was in place during the first day?
What the heck is a hully gully?
Sorry, “yeen” but the Olympic football tournament is a FIFA event, run by a 17 man organizing committee in Zurich. This year the Head is Zong Zilong of China, the President of the AFC.
Try doing a small bit of research.
Bill’s right. The FIFA logo has been in the stadium for every game so far. They run the qualifying tournaments. It’s an entirely FIFA-run event. It just happens to take place at the Olympics.
London may have enough stadia for one 16-team tournament, but not two.
Why are they playing women’s soccer and men’s soccer outside of London?
You could play the men at Chelses, Arsenal, Tottenham, Wembley. Play the women at Fulham, QPR, Charlton Athletic, West Ham. You also have Stoke City and Reading not that far.
Glasgow-to-Cardiff isn’t exactly Pasadena-to-New York.
But I suppose it was nice to have Olympic soccer in the Orange Bowl and RFK.
Even the finals in 1996 were 90 minutes away from ATL. (Trust me — I grew up about two miles from that stadium.)
I was at the Broze Medal game and Gold Medal game for the men in Atlanta. I remember. It’s just that they have football stadiums in London.
Maybe Tottenham and West Ham aren’t in good enough neighborhoods.
In Athens, you mean.
Most Olympic host cities do not have sufficient local venues to hold the soccer tournaments in town, so that is why there is a tradition of spreading around the country. London does have enough venues, but adding the crowds of six soccer venues in one day in one city to everything else going on with all the other sports might have been seen as an unnecessary logistical burden. There also might be the aspect of not wanting one sport to compete with itself for spectators at multiple venues at the same time.
Somebody above stated that London don’t have enough stadiums to host one 16 team tournament not two. Obviously, he has never been.
In 1996 it was the Atlanta Olympics in Athens, Georgia.
Exactly. A couple of miles from my childhood home.
I have been to London, and been in a soccer stadium there.
Over 50K: Wembley, Twickenham, Emirates.
30-40K: White Hart Lane, Stamford Bridge.
20-30K: Selhurst Park, The Valley, Upton Park.
Is that enough for 28 teams (only 12 women’s entries)? Do you need to drag in places like Brentford and Orient?
They’re using 6 venues for these Olympics. Pick any 6 venues and they could do it. Men and women play on separate days, so the total of 28 teams isn’t especially relevant.
Most of the Olympics in London is contained within an Olympic zone. Transportation to a stadium on the opposite side of the city vs. transportation to Cardiff isn’t much different. It might even be easier to get to Cardiff.
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