The World Cup armband row would never happen in Japan

Before the start of their World Cup game with Japan, the German team chose to make a ‘protest’. Each player covered his mouth for the pre-match photo to indicate how the team had been silenced by Fifa’s ban on ‘One Love’ armbands – and thus prevented from showing solidarity with Qatar’s gay community. A powerful gesture they no doubt hoped. But slightly less powerful than the images taken 90 minutes later, when the Germans had been truly silenced, or at least rendered temporarily dumbstruck, by their unfancied opponents, who stunned Hansi Flick’s side by coming from a goal down to claim a thrilling victory.

The defeat has been compared to Saudi Arabia’s victory over tournament favourites Argentina on Wednesday. If the Japanese were easily offended, they might take exception to this Eurocentric arrogance – something of a feature of this tournament so far – as it is on nothing like the same scale of that upset.