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Although more hardcore Japanophiles might prefer to think that people in Japan watch sumo every other day and practice kendo or karate on the weekends, without a shadow of a doubt, Japan’s most popular spectator sports are football and baseball. With the former becoming increasingly popular since the ’90s, football (or “sakkaa“) fans are as numerous as they are vocal, and yet with football considered a much more family oriented spectator sport in Japan than in some Western countries, entire families with small kids or groups of pretty twenty-something girls are just as common sights at matches as grown men with painted faces holding cups of beer.
This week, fans of the sport have taken to online message boards to express their surprise and amusement at the level of vitriol and anger behind a parody video that appeared on YouTube in December last year calling for David Moyes, the current manager of England’s Manchester United, to resign.
The former Everton manager picked up the baton at Manchester United in July last year, but since then the once great team’s performance on the field has been far from stellar, despite having a technically strong (and incredibly costly) squad. Former manager Sir Alex Ferguson has appealed to fans to give Moyes a chance to find his feet, but many are calling for the new manager to leave and are understandably desperate to see their side perform as they once did.
The video started doing the rounds here in Japan late last week, and has been causing quite a stir amongst football fans.
It would be wrong to suggest that Japanese fans are not as passionate as their European counterparts – there are plenty of diehard supporters that spend most of their waking hours thinking, talking and arguing about the sport – but a visit to virtually any big game in Japan would likely surprise football fans from Europe. While the sight of an overweight man in a tight-fitting football shirt yelling obscenities at the players, referee or managers is far from rare in countries like this writer’s native UK, Japanese spectators are altogether more placid and take defeat with far more grace and humility. There are plenty of cheers, gasps, shouts and cries to be heard during a typical match, but chants of things like “the referee’s a wanker” are a rarity in Japan, and the general atmosphere is usually more “G” than PG13 or R-rated.
It’s perhaps for that reason that Japanese football fans were not just amused but rather shocked at the ferocity of the above video, which has recently been shared with tremendous frequency and received hundreds of comments such as:
LOL What the hell is this? That dude’s so tone-deaf it hurt my ears. This is an “official” song!? WTF Nice cross. OK, that’s pretty funny.
Poor old David. Your team’s supporters’ lack of love for you has officially become known on the opposite side of the world.
Source: Football Net
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25 Comments
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Tamarama
Tongue firmly in cheek, lucabrasi, firmly in cheek.
United have to take what they can get at the moment :)
USNinJapan2
And that will bring us back to Do, oh oh oh... Moyes out.
lucabrasi
@Tamarama
If beating Palace is your yardstick for success, you're in deep trouble....
Tamarama
But they won on the weekend!!!
They beat Palace!!
falseflagsteve
@USNinJapan2
Ok, let me educate you about that whole incident and what happened. Cantona attacked a Palace supporter who was a thug granted however he was banned from playing and received a criminal conviction in court for his attack.
Paul Nixon died after a group of Palace supporters were attacked by manure fans (annoyed by the loss of the Frenchy hero)outside of a pub, after being hit with a brick and stabbed he fell under a coach and was crushed to death.
USNinJapan2
Sure steve. That bus that ran over him had nothing to do with it. And as for being classy, you certainly show us how by continually referring to the club as 'manure'...
nath
I don't really feel sorry for them at all. Swings and roundabouts really.
Lowly
kind of funny movements in the video, but bad voice.
i enjoyed a couple of the "epic fail" vids in the links after this vid ended.
falseflagsteve
@USNinJapan
Mot whining actually , stating a fact. what kind of person except a nonce would be a"fan" of a team thousands of miles away in a pace they have never been to, soley because they are successful and they can bathe in the glory. Reminds me of little girls Beiber fans, same level except they have the excuse of still being young and immature.
Manure fans are so classy as well, many going to Selhurst Park with Cantona masks lack of respect to a dead fan caused by the outfall of the incident.
Robata
As a Liverpool supporter for over 35 years i've seen us through the glory years and the lean years, i do think that there are a lot more glory hunters these days but i think thats down to globalisation of football and the saturation of football on television, in the past people tended to support their local team where as today people choose to follow certain players as well as teams. With regards to Manchester United I think Moyes is doing an outstanding Job, and may he continue as the manger for many years to come!
Jimizo
@USN I agree that it's okay for those not born in the area to follow a team. I still see lots of Irish supporters coming over to watch Liverpool and Everton when I go back to Liverpool and those at Goodison haven't had much too much silverware to enjoy since 1987 ( one FA cup ). They are true supporters. You could just put an end to these comments about bandwagon jumpers by telling them when you started following Man U. If you're a young man and weren't around in the bad times, that's fair enough.
USNinJapan2
Cha-ching! Hey look another nickel for me! falseflagsteve's whining again about people who choose to like/follow/support a team that's not in their area code. Oh, the horror...
Ah_so
99% of global Man U fans are glory hunters. Nearly all have started supporting the club since they rose to dominance 20-odd years ago.
the_odeman
I would rather the world be addicted to football, than to drugs, war or other stuff that wrecks peoples lives.
falseflagsteve
The video was made by a fan not a supporter. Someone who supporter their team does through thick or thin. One who cannot stand a few months of below par results is a fan and a glory hunter.
lucabrasi
Moyes has stepped into one of the most difficult jobs in football with no experience of managing at anywhere near this level. (Sorry, Everton.)
Brave or foolish, time will tell... But he certainly needs that time to show what he can do. That seems to be the opinion of almost all the insiders at Old Trafford.
@Jimizo
If you want to see hooligans in action, come down to Kyushu and watch Fukuoka play Tosu, in Tosu. It's like a visit from Millwall. Only Fukuoka seem somehow to have dropped a division, so that's not a fixture we can look forward to any time soon... so sad (´▽｀)
Jimizo
I sometimes go to watch Kashiwa Reysol and they have a section of pretty boisterous fans but as mentioned, they don't seem to spit as much bile as fans in the Premiership. I've heard some Japanese people say that some Tigers and Dragons fans can be called 'hooligans', but I'm not sure if that word has the same feeling in Japanese. As for Moysie, I feel for him. He looks at least ten years older than when he left Goodison last year. Perhaps it would be better for all concerned if he left.
USNinJapan2
Moyes OUT. Now.
Stewart Gale
The huge majority of Manchester United fans, while being disillusioned with performances and results this season have not been calling for David Moyes' dismissal.
davestrousers
The author is correct in saying the Japanese fans don't tend to focus on the negative. Completely wrong to say they are "placid" though. Most English premier league grounds resemble a library when compared to J-League supporters..
As for 'Moyes Out', if they want things to get better it really should be Glazer Out.
dcog9065
I really don't like Man U, but even I feel sorry for their team and fans this season..
Dennis Bauer
The guy needs some singing lessons.
Mr Japan
man utd fans all are idiots.
Nenad Jovanović
Majority of world is totally and unnecessarily addicted to football, but to get back to the story, its nice that Japan show their positive cultural difference from the rest of the world with this how they act on sport events, and not only football, if you can remember , some week ago, there were clash of tennis representatives of Canada vs Japan, and while it was played in Japan, the ones who were heard were 80 Canadians who cheered as crazy their team, while Japan audience was much more quiet .