Japan national football team

It's partly that.

It is also, I think, and I know obviously, Tom, you're the guest here, so we will talk to you about your love of Japan.

But I know we've talked about it before.

And I think it's a similar kind of thing in that there is just a love of Japanese culture in itself.

And it is an incredibly fascinating place.

It's partly the Japanese culture.

It's also just especially like the 90s kits, but going up to maybe like the mid 2000s are just wacky and out there.

And I had a real love of that side of it as well.

I honestly don't care.

The Japanese midfield should dominate in this game.

But UAE is going to have that counterattack all day, every day.

Because Junosuke Suzuki is a terrible defender.

Abu Laila was a man of the match, arguably, for Jordan in that game.

I don't know if they can weather another storm.

like that not based on what i'm seeing from the saudis at this point in time setting up a ridiculously juicy semi-final between australia and japan and i think this is going to be a one nothing and australia advanced on penalties i think australia will want it more than japan i think defensively they've proven that they can be the uh the kryptonite to this japanese team i'm not even sure that japan i mean they have so many injuries probably somebody's going to break down like someone's body's going to break down during this asian cup and uh yeah I just because I question their mentality and I hate saying that but it's true I just see dozens hundreds of comments about it it's not like I saw one dude on Twitter who was like I don't really care about the Asian Cup and I was like all Japanese people think this way no It's everywhere online.

It is chronic throughout the fan base.

But like I said, and that was sort of when I'd heard about.

So he is interesting because he plays for the Japanese national team.

But I think he's that was actually born in America.

So I actually think he could have played for the U.S. national team.

But he made a decision because I think he's got Japanese parents.

But he's he's basically the number one for the Japan's national team, which is pretty good.

But I always heard he's like great with his feet.

But he's playing further forward and influencing the shape of the play.

And he's a very clever player, Japan international.

And they got the goals very rapidly in a spell, almost in stoppage time at the end of the first half.

The first one, Kamada finished off, and there were a lot of players in the box.

Well,

I saw that, the first time I saw that, was it Kamada? Yeah.

The Japanese guy.

I mean, he was in the Japan team

Right.

The series that didn't just entertain but fundamentally rewired the real world demographics of sports in Japan.

We're talking about Slam Dunk and Haikyu!!

The absolute titans of realism.

It's a perfect dynamic.

It really is.

And the article explicitly credits Haikyu!! with giving volleyball the real-world spotlight it deserved, like literally swelling the ranks of high school volleyball clubs across Japan.

What's fascinating here is the sociological feedback loop.