Japan's Blue Samurai deserve praise: In reaching the second round of this year's World Cup in South Africa, they did much better than expected. Tuesday's 5-3 defeat to Paraguay on a penalty shootout — after a grueling 120-minute contest without a goal — was heartbreaking. Although the team failed to reach the quarterfinals and thus fell short of team manager Takeshi Okada's goal of reaching the last four, team members have reason to be proud of themselves.
Many Japanese soccer fans were glued to the TV broadcast of the Japan-Paraguay match, which lasted from 10:40 p.m. Tuesday to 1:10 a.m. Wednesday. Average audience ratings were 57.3 percent in the Kanto area, 54.1 percent in the Osaka area and 52.4 percent in the Nagoya area, with instantaneous ratings of 64.9 percent, 62.3 percent and 61 percent, respectively, according to Video Research Ltd.
Before the World Cup started, it had been thought that it would be very difficult for Japan to win even a single game, let alone advance from Group E. In that group, Japan defeated Cameroon and Denmark, and suffered a narrow loss to the Netherlands. Italy and France, the champion and runnerup, respectively, in the 2006 World Cup, left the scene early.