Japanese salarymen dashing to work today exchanged high fives with bleary-eyed football fans celebrating after the country reached the last 16 of the World Cup -- most blissfully unaware of a backlash against their team.
Japan lost 1-0 to Poland in Russia yesterday in a match that ended in farce as the Samurai Blue ran down the clock knowing unless they picked up a pair of yellow cards or Senegal equalised against Colombia in the other Group H game, they would go through.
"It was definitely a little bit fishy and it's not nice to hear a crowd booing like that but, well, we reached the knockout stage -- so 'banzai!'... I guess," advertising copywriter Ken Yazawa told AFP.
"It's only the third time we've got this far," added the 44-year-old. "Hopefully we can go even further, although now we have to beat Belgium to reach the quarter-finals -- nightmare!"
One disgruntled fan noted the irony of Japan becoming the first team to advance under the "fair play" rule after collecting fewer bookings than Senegal, posting: "It's funny how Japan went through playing anti-football but we live to fight another day."
- Under fire -
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"I watched the game in a bar and no foreigners came up to congratulate us this time, that's true. But I don't think Japan did anything wrong."
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