Christmas Confessions

I have man-envy…envy? The opposite of man-crush at John Duerden. He’s the one to write Asian football in Korea, or Japan, or Southeast Asia, or Australia. And he’s living the life.

In fact, I have man-envy…ok, envy, at all Westerner living in East Asia or making regular trips around the region to cover Asian football. Not because I cannot be like them, but because there’s lack of role models – a Chinese, Korean, or Japanese man of any nationality covering football for mainstream international media. It’s back to John, or Patrick Johnston, or well, the only Asian around is Sudipto Ganguly. Like I said, no Chinese, Korean, or Japanese. Fox Sports Asia (and its predecessor ESPN) even has no Asian male pundit or newscaster (Steve Lai has moved to Channel News Asia).

And as always, my education on what’s going on in Asia comes from a Westerner. Like John Duerden. He told us that A-League players and fans found it’s uncomfortable to sit an away match in Asia. And not only because Australians are not Asian and that stuff, but because Asian clubs dislike the AFC Champions League. J-League’s terrible performance in the ACL is blamed on lack of their enthusiasm for continental competition, but I was surprised to read that it also happens to K-League teams.

Suits in Japan and Korea say that the Champions League is not profitable. I don’t buy it. It’s expensive but they have the money. The real reason is because they loath making overseas trips, leaving the boxes of their Korean and Japanese worlds (and ditto to several other nations). Australians love to travel but they know that Asia is an acquired taste, unlike Europe or South America. But while the ACL can be a sobering and painful experience for A-League teams and supporters (with the final score), the bigger faults lie in the insular football culture in Asia.

Insular is a funny word. From Japan to Indonesia, people wear MU and Barcelona colors with pride. Children can recite the whole Liverpool formation by heart. They also talk with pride (before match) and despair (after match) about their national teams. But they give no damn about what’s going on next door.  The usual excuse is that European football is good while Asian football is boring. But the real issue is that they don’t have enough positive feeling for fellow Asian nations. Of course, this is not only in football but also in several other respects – pop culture, social, and language. That’s another thing I envy – Europeans can breezily interact with each other in several language, talking about their food, holiday spots, and X-Factor stars. Asians can, but they don’t want too.

Take the mid-week UEFA Champions League schedule. Europeans are eager to see their city team beating those pesky foreigners (or just owning some cute Czech or Norwegian team) on a Wednesday night, with the fanfare of glorious orchestral anthem. For all their venom for their neighbors over things that happened 100 or 200 years ago, Japanese and Koreans could not bring the whole family to see their club kick butt. Daddy still has to work (but it’s 8 pm!), Mommy prefers to see soap opera at home or Thor in cinema, and the kids are still in cram schools (but it’s 8 pm!). Plus, those Aussie or Japanese foreigners are not interesting – and it’s nauseating to see their supporters. It’s a different story with those hicks from neighboring province/prefecture that we will face on Saturday. We will come in full force and chanting without cease for 90 minutes. And cleaning up our trashes afterward.

More proof of this insularity? I got Winning Eleven/Pro Evo Soccer 14 for Christmas. Yay, Asian Champions League. Shall I play Guangzhou or Sanfrecce (I have enough K-League and A-League from FIFA, thank you). But first, let’s play FIFA Confederations Cup 2013!

Eh? What the hell? I scoured Internet and found it – the international version of PES 14 is not an official product of the Japan Football Association. But there’s no official press release. Just posts in fora (that’s forums). O God, I don’t believe this. Konami wants to become the official video game maker for UEFA Champions League, Copa Libertadores, and AFC Champions League. But the JFA doesn’t want foreigners to support Japan. I guess that’s the reason. I realize that now many football hipsters support Japan and discuss Kagawa, Yoshida, Honda, and Kakitani as if they are African players, but JFA does not want this.

I had two options: assembling a Japanese team composed of Hiroshima, Kashiwa, Urawa, and Sendai players plus the Europeans, or renamed the fictional players according to the Confed Cup lineups. I chose the latter and recalled my basic katakana reading skill to locate all the commentary sound files (I have the Asian version with Japanese audio option). Got them all – Kawashima, the Sakais, and Maeda. I just let the jersey to be red. Dear God, this is terrible, JFA. It’s not enough that you always refuse to provide J-League and refuse FIFA to obtain the J-League or Japan license. Now you have to discourage foreigners from playing Japan.

Then just now I caught up with an old friend and talking about Yakuza 5, which had been released in Japan last year. And Sega representatives were not happy when Westerners were asking them. Sega made limited comments that the localization (i.e. text translation) cost is too high and the fan base is too small. Konami can make the same excuse for J-League and JFA licensing. I think the real excuse is similar – Sega does not want foreigners to enjoy the virtual Kabukicho and other red light districts in Japan (in my Yakuza 4 guide I explain aspects of Japanese culture surrounding the game. Sega might have read it and unhappy that this Chinese Indonesian tells all. Who knows). Many Japanophiles enjoy Yakuza as they can become virtual tourists – and who knows, this is what actually irks Sega or some other parties in Japan.

So, ACL 14? More preliminaries? Good. Guangzhou as the big red tiger? Good. Western Sydney looks forward for the Asian away trip with caution? Fine. But I have also to brace for the possibility that both J. League and K-League teams might put on worse half-ass effort for the competition.

And what I’m sure is, I won’t buy another PES. Unless Japan win AFC Asian Cup 2015, in which I have to play PES 16. Better bet on the Socceroos then.

Asian+Football

I DID look for stock image of Asian Australians playing football but found none. She might be Turk, or Arab, or Iran, or Italian or Irish or Croat.

There will be several Asian-Australian figures acting as Community Ambassadors for the 2015 AFC Asian Cup in Australia. Because apparently some Australians see Asians as strangers, and many Asians see Australia as a white country. Well, if you see the Socceroos…

I’ve come to accept that there is no Chinese or Korean or Japanese Australians playing in the A-League (they are more likely to be found in diving, badminton, taekwondo, and golf). But come to think of it, I also fail to remember any Iranian or Arab Australian footballer – who was born in Australia and grew up in Australia. Some Turkish and African Australians yes, but not Iranian. Or Arab. So we have Iranian and Chinese Australians who say that they are excited for 2015, but well, if China do not qualify, then the AFC Cup will be West Asians plus Australia, Japan, and the Koreas.

I don’t look at Arab football in general, and yet I still want to know why Arab Australians do not make it into professional football, while it is common to see them playing on parks on weekend and under the floodlights on Tuesday night. And uh, I did try to search on “Arab Australian soccer” and I found three things – Arab football federations and Olympic committees said that Australia’s entry into AFC a decade ago “will kill Asian sports” (might explain a new information – Arab teams might play the ‘roos with worse hatred than China or Japan);  Robbie Slater slammed Aussies who play in Arab leagues, and an Israeli newspaper lulzed Arab teams in 2011 Asian Cup. On second thought, many Arab European footballers I can think of have their heritage from North Africa rather than Lebanon, Syria (Sanharib Malki chooses to play for Syria than Belgium or Netherlands), or even Iran.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that’s the difficult thing about watching Socceroos. As much as I love Australia (job related), it’s hard to really support an Asian team composed of Italians, Anglo-Irish, Croats and Serbs, native Australians and Africans. In which most of the supporters are also of the same stock with the players. I did see once an East Asian guy brought a board written “Australia: Asia Ichiban” in Japanese, but whether he is Chinese or Japanese, it seemed that he tried too hard to be an Australian. Having said that, then it’s the responsibility of Asian Australians themselves, be their Iranian or Japanese, to break the ceiling collectively and match the footballing quality of the European Australians.

With the Brazil 14 group drawing coming this week, Japan and Korea can be assured that they are prepared with Honda, Kagawa, and Son proving their worth for clubs and countries. Sadly, I got a reminder today that South Korean and Japanese fans are much less cute today. Two years after Tadanari Lee won the Asian Cup for Japan. I just wish that several Korean players will still continue playing in J. League and Japanese players (Takahara then, Escudero recently) will hold on in K-League longer than one season.

Certainly I’d also support Guangzhou Evergrande in the FIFA Club World Cup – first time ever for a Chinese club. The bragging rights that Asian football is actually better than African football (ever since Japan defeated Cameroon in 2001 Confederations Cup) is on the line here. And I want to see how good the Three Amigos of Muriqui, Elkeson, and Conca are beyond Asia.

O yeah, there’s a new Vincent Tan in the English Premier League. His name is Assem Allam. He’s Egyptian, although yeah, the Hull Tigers thing might be also a plan to make his club more popular in Asia (or Far East, as the British say).