Football in Japan (サッカー)

Football, even though not being the biggest sport in Japan (This is the land of baseball) it has been the second most popular sport for the last few years, followed shortly after by Sumo and Golf. Nevertheless, according to the Central Research Services last surveys, in 2010 professional football popularity remarkably fell to the point that switched positions with Sumo, followed by an increasing popularity of professional Golf. In the chart below you can see the evolution of the answer to the question "What professional sport do you like?".

CRS survey available here

This question is supposed to be the reference to know which are the most popular sports in Japan, but I think it is a little bit tricky. As you can see in the chart all the options people could choose from are sports practised in Japan professionally, but specially talking about football, this does not reflect the real popularity of the sport. Why? Because even though J-League is popular, every football fan has his J-League team and the stadiums sell their tickets, people who are crazy about football in Japan set their eyes in Europe: specially in England, Spain and Italy. Maybe I am wrong, but in my opinion this survey focuses in sports done by Japanese professional sportsmen.

Among my Japanese friends, the ones who are football fans have their favourite teams in Europe, apart from the one here in Japan. And they try to follow the results and news and watch online or in an sports bar the most important matches, no matter what time they are (usually REALLY late at night). When I did not have the chance to watch the game or read the news I know that if I ask them they will always be even better informed about my favourite team back home than me.

I come from Barcelona (Spain) where the biggest sport is definitely football, and my team is easy to guess: Football Club Barcelona. I have supported FCB all my life, but only since the last 3 years I am proud to say that we possibly have the best team in the world, winning almost all the competitions both national and international with astonishing results, breaking all the historical records year by year and gathering admiration all around the world for the particular style of football FCB has been faithful to. This results, as well as the popularity of Lionel Messi breaking all top scoring records and being awarded with the highest prizes for football players several times in a row, have remarkably risen the popularity of FCB all around the world, including Japan.

But in this post I want to focus in how Japanese live football, and how do they behave as supporters during the matches because I think there are some big differences. In Europe, people really throw themselves into the game supporting their favourite teams and some standard social rules of behavior change when the ball is rolling. When the referee does a mistake or there is a polemic move involving rival players, people yell and even curse loudly the poor men (moms included) and I do not say it is correct but I guess it is part of the nervousness and excitement of the game, and I could even say it is part of its fun. When your team scores a goal, everybody starts shouting "gooooal!" and hugging with unknown people holding spilling beers is not very unusual. What I want to say is that people become fully emotional rather than reflexive, standard social rules step a little bit aside and some other kind of behavior comes out. From a sociological point of view this game seems to bring up "tribal" feelings that connect people in a perhaps more primitive way.

The first time I saw a game in Japan I was curious about how would it be in a society with such a strong social ruling to watch such a passionate spectacle. That day FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, which are the maximum rivals were playing, and so I went to a sports bar in Umeda (Osaka) to watch the game with my friends. The game was at 4 o'clock at night, but the bar was full and we even had to pay a special event price and make a reservation in advance to be able to get in there. Amazing, -I thought- even though we are in the other side of the world there is such passion about football and these two teams to choose watching the game over sleeping. I guess that due to the results of FCB in the last few seasons I refered to above, 80% or 90% of the bar was supporting Barça (FCB's nickname). Good start! The place was full, but it felt a little bit weird to me, different. Soon I noticed that nobody was shouting any of the team's cries or behaving any different, there was excitement about the upcomming kick off but everybody was keeping it down. Finally the game started and the torrent of goals started falling on Real Madrid. Every time Barça scored, me and my mexican friend (who loves the game with the same passion as me) shouted "gooooooooooooooooooal!" and made some noise, but surprisingly... we were the only ones! A fully packed sports bar watching a football game but there was a brief applause followed by some comments between friends. It was definitely different. Anyway, the good final result and seeing how many supporters my team has in Japan made me really happy that night.

Japanese Barça fans I met in the place

Shortly after I had the experience to watch a J-League match in Osaka Stadium, it was the opening game of the season and it was a derby: Cerezo Osaka vs. Gamba Osaka. I was so excited to see my favourite Japanese player Endo Yasuhito, former midfielder in Gamba and Best Asian Player in 2009 by FIFA. I saw this man playing in the last World Cup and he is one of the best free kick shooters I have ever seen. That day he did not let down anybody, he scored a great goal and also showed his accuracy hitting the post from 30m in a fantastic free kick that made the whole stadium skip a heartbeat. But back to the subject of this post, going to the stadium watching the game and seeing who Japanese people support their teams there (not for foreign teams on TV) made me understand a little bit more how passion flows into the sport. But first, please watch this video:



As you can see, this is the beginning of the match, when players come out onto the pitch. There were cheerleaders (something I have seen in other sports but never in football) and a speaker presenting the teams whos voice resounded throughout the stadium due to the quietness of the public. Yes, the public was very quiet and remained like that for the whole game, with the exception of some applause. But there is a remarkable exception: behind the two goals there is the special place for the most fanatic supporters, Japanese hooligans who wear wear their team's T-shirts, banners and flags; uniformed from head to tail without exception. They did not stop cheering up their teams for a single second during the whole match, and the way they were doing it was also different from what I am used to see. There was organization, even rank, they had battle cry leaders wielding loudspeakers and the rest of them were following the songs along with the trumpets and drums. The flags also moved all at the same time producing the sensation of pink and blue waves, depending on the side of the pitch. It was just like I remember it was in the anime "Captain Tsubasa" I used to watch when I was a child. A great spectacle. Japan is different.


In conclusion, Japanese people are really passionate towards football but they show it in a different way compared to Europe. Most football fans devour information, statistics and opinion articles about their teams, even more than in other "football countries". Then they gather with their friends and watch the games in a calm way, without losing their composure at all. But then, on the other hand we have the hooligans, crazy about their teams and strongly organized in supporters clubs who behave like a little army. Like in other interests or hobbies, some people in Japan bring them to the extreme that we could call the people 「サッカーオタク」 (Football Otakus). Two sepparate ways of watching football, clearly separated by the location in the stadium.

In Europe we also have hooligans, of course, but in a different way. Unfortunately, too often the difference is that they become violent and end up fighting or breaking stuff, specially a few years ago before the FIFA and the most important clubs took care of the problem and developed strict regulations. I think the main difference is that football fans in Europe "we all are hooligans" in the nicest sense of the word, we all forget about keeping the composure and become extremely passionate when watching the games.

One same game, two different cultures. One same passion, two different ways of living it.