Philip Patrick is an exiled Scot, who lectures at a Tokyo university and contributes to the Japan Times
It is a measure of the unexpected success of the Qatar World Cup that it could be hailed as the best, by Fifa President Gianni Infantino, and the boast was not entirely laughable. This World Cup had its share of longueurs but had plenty of excitement and ended on such a high note that conspiracists
With the prospect of Messi closing out his glorious career with the ultimate prize it’s likely most neutral fans will be rooting for Argentina in today’s World Cup final. The only place where that might not be true – apart from Brazil – is England, where there may even be an unlikely revival of the
I hope that the Argentinian national team (also known as Lionel Messi) will win its third (or first?) World Cup on Sunday. But even if it doesn’t, the team’s legendary number ten has surely achieved that rare and precious accolade – earned by Pele in 1970 and Maradona in 1986 – of so dominating a
Spain crashed out of the World Cup on penalties last night, despite dominating possession against Morocco for two solid hours. Pretty much everyone bar Spaniards will be delighted by this giant-killing by Morocco, who are just the fourth African team to reach the quarter-finals in football history. But their penalty success is nothing to celebrate.
You often hear about ‘legacy’ when international sporting tournaments come around. It’s a weasel word used by the organisers to justify the colossal expense by promising some lasting benefit – which usually comes to nothing. But perhaps with the Qatar World Cup, one of the most controversial in the competition’s history, there may be a
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
England have backed down in the ludicrous standoff with Fifa over the plan for captain Harry Kane to wear a ‘One Love’ armband – to show solidarity with gay community of Qatar – in today’s opening fixture against Iran. The move would have defied the governing body’s rules on acceptable on field attire. Faced with
‘I’m defending football here, and injustice’ was the standout quote, for me, from what has been described as a ‘bizarre tirade’ by Fifa president Gianni Infantino at a pre-World Cup press conference yesterday. But (Freudian?) slips aside, there were plenty of gems to choose from. Other highlights of the rambling, hour-long diatribe include Infantino’s impassioned
Cristiano Ronaldo has almost certainly played his last game for Manchester United after an ‘explosive’ interview which ‘the whole world’s talking about’ (Piers Morgan’s words). ‘The biggest star that football has ever seen’ (Piers again) spills the beans on his cruel and incompetent employers in a two-part interview to be broadcast tonight and tomorrow. Fans
Are there any redeeming features of the Qatar World Cup? Perhaps one: the tournament has a sane and logical format. Having 32 teams reduced to 16 after the group stage, followed by a straight knock out is easy to understand and should produce an exciting third round of games and plenty of thrills thereafter. But
At least 151 people were crushed or trampled to death in a narrow alley in the South Korean capital Seoul last night. That figure – which is expected to rise – makes it one of the worst peacetime disasters in the country’s history. President Yoon Suk-yeol has declared a national period of mourning. Both Rishi
There isn’t much that unites the fractious, dysfunctional football family. But in the UK, at least, there is something most fans seem to agree on: VAR – Video Assistant Referee – is awful. The technology, introduced to limit errors and controversy, appears to be having the opposite effect. Critics speak of VAR as if it were
30 min listen
This week: Harriet Sergeant writes about why ethnicity matters in sexual abuse cases (0:30), Lionel Shriver takes aim at the American university students failing their exams, (8:06), Martin Vander Weyer looks at the latest forecasts for housing prices (17:01), and Philip Patrick thinks Japanese food is overrated (25:19). Produced and presented by Natasha Feroze.
Tokyo After 23 years in Japan, having tried everything from yatai (street food) to deep-fried globe fish in a kaiseki (traditional) restaurant, I have come to the conclusion that Japanese food is overrated. It is rarely less than perfectly presented, and it can be superb – but it can also be bland and homogenous. Part
Several French cities have announced that they will be boycotting the upcoming World Cup in protest against the Qatari state’s human rights record and, for some, the alleged environmental impact of the event. The customary big screens and specially designated fans zones have been cancelled in Paris, Bordeaux, Lille, Marseilles, Strasbourg and Reims. Pierre Hurmic,
Tokyo While not quite on the scale of Her Majesty’s service, Tuesday’s state funeral of Japan’s longest serving PM Shinzo Abe, gunned down while campaigning on the streets of Nara in July, will be an extravagant affair. The ceremony will take place at the Nippon Budokan in central Tokyo with approximately 6,000 attendees including the
Ibrox stadium, home of Rangers football club, saw a powerful tribute to the late Queen last night before the team’s Champion’s league game against Napoli. There was a minute’s silence, then an enormous tifo covering the entire Broomloan stand was revealed (of the Union Jack with the late Queen in silhouette in the middle). The
The Japanese government has launched an initiative to encourage young people to drink more alcohol. Yes, really. The national tax agency’s ‘Sake Viva’ campaign is an appeal for ideas to get youngsters boozing after taxes on alcohol products, which accounted for 5 per cent of total revenue back in the hard-drinking 1980s, fell to just
Japan is reversing its avowedly anti-nuclear stance, restarting idled plants and looking to develop a new generation of reactors, announced Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday. This major policy shift from the world’s third biggest economic power underlines both the seriousness of the global energy crisis and points to the most likely way ahead. This announcement would
‘Language please, there are ladies present’, that was the kind of thing you would occasionally hear when some possibly overly refreshed male would forget himself and lapse into vulgarity in the presence of what was then referred to as the ‘fairer sex’. But if you thought such days were long gone, and such interjections now
