The other night we watched on television the thrilling upset of the Italians by South Korean in the World Cup, and yesterday I spent a fair amount of time catching up on the fallout from this match via various web sites. The Italians somewhat predictably have been claiming a “conspiracy” against them on the part of the referree and FIFA, while in South Korea millions took to the streets to celebrate.
Regarding the supposed conspiracy the Italians were quick to claim, my wife found a Japanese site yesterday that puts forward the intriguing claim that a Korean fan with a laser pointer was trying to mess with the Italians’ heads. So far I’ve found nowhere else that has picked up on this other than my favorite World Cup blog, whom I sent the item to last night. There’s a mpeg video (1.27MB) of one point in the match in particular where Italian Francesco Totti grabs his face in pain for no apparent reason. The video is inconclusive (to say the least) as to whether a dastardly laser pointer was to blame, and frankly what I think it shows is Totti’s attempt to draw a foul when no foul has been committed (as he later now infamously did later in the match which resulted in him being sent off). Nevertheless these kind of “only on the Internet” stories fascinate me.
More interesting is that despite the “lets go Korea” in the above site’s URL, it isn’t a fan site for the Korean team but rather a site that attempts to take down what its author views as the overbearing pride and nationalism of the Korean side. This should make the laser pointer claims that much more suspect, but it also points up what is emerging as a recurrent theme during this World Cup, which is the competition between the two host nations. It was inevitable that having two countries with a history of occupation and deep-seeded animosity host the mondial would lead to a “who’s a better host” competition off the field and a “who can field a better team” competition on the field. When Japan was eliminated earlier on Tuesday, the crowd of fans that had gathered in one of Seoul’s major squares to watch the later Korea-Italy match cheered. And no doubt having made it through to the quarterfinals when Japan didn’t played no small part in the Korean celebrations of Tuesday night.
For all of Japanese enthusiasm for this World Cup, it’s unimaginable that the fans that had tickets to the Japan-Turkey match would have shown up in identical blue t-shirts the way that 40,000 Koreans did (in red t-shirts). Or that Japan organizers would distribute white placards on seats before the match so that fans could later spell out messages to the Turkey side, like South Korea did when fans spelled out “Again 1966”, a reference to the upset of Italy by North Korea in the 1966 World Cup. Or that Japanese fans would hang banners that read “Welcome to Your Tomb” like the “Welcome to Azzuri’s Tomb” banner the Koreans hung. Or that the Japanese would hang banners proclaiming that Japan would beat Turkey 5-0 as the Koreans did. To say nothing of the “Porta Dell’ Inferno!!! Fossa Dei Giganti” (“Gates of Hell! Grave of the Giants”) messages in Italian above the “Corea 5 : 0 Italy”. (I note that “Fossa” also happens to be the name of Italian captain Paolo Maldini’s wife).
And what to make of Korea spelled with a C in the various banners and in all those red scarves that seemingly every Korean fan had? Well, not surprisingly this is how the Italian language spells Korea. But it goes deeper than that, and takes us back to the notion that in some ways beating Japan in the hosting competition is as important as beating Italy or advancing to the quarterfinals. According to this site, the spelling of the country’s name with a K is a vestige of Japan’s annexation of Korea in the early 1900’s, when Japan couldn’t accept it’s colony coming alphabetically first in the parade of nations.
Japan is still coming to grips with its Imperialist past, and except for some very fringe and vastly ignored extreme right-wing groups, overt displays of nationalism are anathema to most Japanese. Therefore if Japan had beat Turkey, or Italy or anyone for that matter, it’s highly unlikely that Miyagi statium would have seen even 1/10th of the emotion and pride and nationalism that was on display in South Korea. This reserve has it’s flipside in sites like the “let’s go Korea” one, where envy of the Korean’s pride mixes with distaste for what many Japanese see as a country that can’t get over itself or it’s various grudges big and small (witness Ahn Jung-Hwan’s speed-skating dance during the South Korea-US match).
Again, none of this is surprising given the two country’s history and Korea’s perennial underdog status, both on the pitch and in geopolitics. Right from the get-go of the opening night ceremonies was the off-the-field competition engaged, when in a bit of psychological projection the Koreans exaggerated the “rising sun” of the Japanese flag to mythic proportions (take a look at this photo here, and compare the Japanese flag in the picture with what it should look like here. (Apparently Japan’s World Cup association JAWOC complained to the Koreans during rehearsals for the ceremony but the Koreans didn’t correct the flag).