Since I'm in Japan on business, I took the opportunity to go checkout Chope's team, FC Tokyo, hosting Nagoya Grampus Eight at Ajinomoto stadium. Entrada al estadio:
Turns out a lot of the fans carry shirts that have messages in spanish...weird, huh? Like this girl with 'chuta, chuta, chuta' and the dude with 'La 12 Hincha de Tokyo' Then there's this guy with this awesome shirt
The supporters also have banners in spanish Chope salió jugando, aquí es cuando anunciaron la alineación...supongo que lo que esta debajo de la foto quiere decir Wanchope en japonés
One more thing cracked me up. The fans have tico flags. How cool is that? The brazillian flag is for a player called Lucas, who's another forward on FC Tokyo.
Fotos de las barras. "La 12" de FC Tokyo (you win a prize if you find the tico flag in this one) Otra de "la 12" "La famiglia" de Nagoya:
A kid with a Chope shirt: Marcador final, FC Tokyo 0:1 Nagoya Grampus Eight Nagoya scored on a counter around the 35th minute. FC Tokyo could have turned it around but just weren't lucky (hit the posts 2 or 3 times). Chope was subbed at the beginning of the 2nd half. He played an OK first half, but his midfielders had a hard time getting him the ball. He made a beautiful through pass to Lucas who was fouled when he was heading towards goal, but the ref didn't call it. Both teams play very fast, but are not too technical, a lot of passes miss the mark and only a few players were able to create danger unless they had superior numbers. Tokyo fans really appreciate Chope. When the people around me found out I'm tico, they were all very friendly and polite and went out of their way to try to talk to me. Only a few spoke a little english, and of course nobody speaks a word of spanish, but by the end of the game I had them all saying 'pura vida'
I'm here for just three weeks. I should be getting back in time for the Gold Cup . Yeah, that shirt really cracked me up. Calling Wanchope the saviour of Tokyo is a bit of a stretch, but it's cool anyway