Thank you South Africa. See you in Brazil!!

Hello. This is Ken.

It's been a while since the World Cup final.
Things have been screwy for the last couple weeks, starting to calm down a bit now.

Now that I want to report about the final, Spain vs Netherlands!!

We have been reporting a bunch of the in South Africa and this is gonna be the last one.

Of course, this will the last game report as the round-the-world journey, that has been gone through about 1 year!

To think that this is really the last game makes me feel sentimental.

The final was held at Soccer City Stadium.

  
As you all know, the teams who made it to the final are the Netherlands and Spain, but the two of us wore our blue samurai armor to give the world a message to support the Japan national team.

Shot with a South African guy.

Well,
if you're a big fan of our blog, you might realize something familiar in this picture.

The second from the left is Mr. Bachelor.

Mr. Bachelor was on South African national squad.
He is also known as a commentator of South African sport news.


Besides him, there were a lot of famous people from all around the world to see this World Cup final.


The stadium was totally jubilant with the excitement !!


Beofre the kick off, there was a closing celemony.
These kids were waiting in line for making an appearance in the show.

All of them were wearig the white cothes.

We ran into another Samurai!

There were more than 10 samurais in the games of Japan.

Now, only 3 of them.

The samurai in the middle is Yohei, who is a cowoker in our previous company. 


He is so brave that he played a few rounds of golf in South Africa.
Moreover, I saw him on this armor in the airport.


I believe he is the "last samurai" !! LOL.


All right, let's get into the main show.

We watched it from the 5th floor.

This ticket costs ＄990!!


Oh, my dear. It's so expensive!!
I couldn't believe it!!


But, what I've been through this long journey made me decided to purchase it as this is the culmination of what we have been aiming.


In spite of that, we were given the seats that were quite far from the field!
Oh, my goodness!!


I heard that good seats had been already taken by FIFA officials.
It's uderstandable, but they should've reserved them even for the normal people.


In a meantime, the closing celemony started!!


The scenary becomes totally dirrenrent from usual.

The blue light was celebrating for Blue Samural,

who made a big performance?

Occasionaly, the stadium turned into red!

Then, yellow. Looks like Las Vegas, doesn't it?

A variety of exciting performances took place.


The live performance of WAKA WAKA by Shakira was also on stage.

The flags of Spain and the Netherlands were glare on the pitch!

A line of elephants!! They are one of the BIG5.

Samurai armor was shown in a movie introducing

supporters from many different coutnries.

Finally, both squads made an appearnce on the pitch along with FIFA Anthem!!


In front of them, the World Cup was set.

The second from the left in the refree team is a Japanese Mr. Nishimura.

It's great of him to be assigned to the fourth judge in a World Cup final, isn't it?


It indicates that he is the fourth best refree in the world.


The goal that Japan made it to the semi final, which had been set by the Japanese national head coach Okada before the World Cup, was achieved by him in the end!!


As you know, Spain was crowned the champion of World Cup!!
They broke lots of jinks.


Their road to this historic moment was not smooth.
They lack in decisive striker, resulting in winning every game by 1-0.


I got an impression that Spanish soccer looks like futsal in that they possess the ball very long, although rarely scored.


Japanese soccer, espetially under Osim's coaching, seems to be similar to it, doesn't it?


Above all, individual skills are the essentials to the possession soccer.


After the trophy was handed to the palyers, they went back to the pitch for the commemorative photo shot.


On the way to it, they were welcomes by ...
Dutch players making an entrance arch so that Spanish palyers could walk through it.

Dutch players also celebrate them!!

I've never seen this scenary.
Who came up with this idea?


Right after the game finished, some Dutch players complained to the refree over the Iniesta's goal as it was look like an off-side.


However, they celebreated thier winning in the end.


What a great moment!!


In addition, commercial boards surrounding the field also read;
"Congratulations!! Spain!!"


Then, they turned into as follows.

Thank you, South Africa.

Then,

See you in Brazil at the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

It is so exquisitely-choreographed!!


I filmed them, too.


I'm sure you feel like to go to Brazil after watching this movie!!


The movie consists of two parts.
Have a look at it!!

After all, this is gonna be the final entry from South Africa.

I will talk about our next plan sooner or later.

This round-the-world journey has taken about 2 years including the preliminary session.

A thousands of viewers have supported our blog during the term.

This long long journey has not been successful witout your supports.

We have learned a lot from this trip.
These will broaden our viewpoints to the world and become a benchmark for pursue of our life goals.

Thank you very for all supporting our journey.
And see you soon in Brazil at the 2010 FIFA World Cup!!


Ken created his own Twitter account!!
He tweets in ENGLISH!!

http://twitter.com/KenYomo

The dream came through: Football United the World !!

Hello. Here is Atsushi.


Spain defeated the Netherlands 1-0 in extra time to win the World Cup for the first time.


Not only supporters of Spain and the Netherlands, both of which have made it the final,  but also soccer fans from all over the world came down to the stadium, which was packed with 84,490 spectators, to see this historical big match. 

I'd like to show the pictures of people from various countries in order to claim that the World Cup is "the world's biggest festival".

Dutch (upper left), Spain (upper right).

South Africa (bottom left), Mexico (bottom right).

France (upper left), Argentina (upper right).

England (bottom left), the U.S.(bottom right). 

Australia (upper left), Ghana (upper right).

Denmark (bottom left), Slovakia (bottom right).

Japan (upper left), New Zealand (upper right).

Brazil (bottom left), Portugal (bottom right).

Honduras (left), Chili (right). 

It took only 1 hour to meet 18 different nationalities out of 32 countries.


Add to these, supporters from the nations that didn't participate in the World Cup were also there.

Croatia (upper left), Poland (upper right).

Jamaica (bottom left), India (bottom right).

Vietnam (left), Saudi Arabia (right).

The following are only flags.

Algeria (upper left), Scotland (upper right).

Israel (bottom left), Finland (bottom right).

Finally, check out this abnormal Japanese.

A supporter of a judge? 

This guy was following the same action of the referee in the game.
If the referee in the game gave the card, this guy did , too.
His performance in front of the crowd made them big laugh.


In the final, many yellow cards were given. So he had lots of opportunities to perform!


By the way, I think the World Cup is the only worldwide sport competition that enchants this vast amount of people from various countries at the same time.


This is the very word's greatest sport festival!! 
I hope we can come back to here 4 years later.






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Miss World Cup!: Final!!

Congratulations! Spain!


Here is Atsushi.


I will report the detail of the final later.
Today, I will work on my final assignment of wold beauties!! Haha.

I met her at a parking lot.

The followings are three shots of Dutch supporters.

Then, Spanish supporters!!

Spain won the game.
But which won this Miss World Cup, Spain or the Netherlands?


I saw Spanish girls with this funny gate flag.

Check here to know more about the octopus story.


Look at him !!

It's so obvious!!


It's so tough to find this costume, isn't it? 
Way to go!!


Add to this is..

I should have had Children World Cup,too.

Finally. this is the last entry of Miss World Cup.

Personally, my best one is a South African TV reporter Cyndy, who I met at the SONY event venue.

The blog at the time was here.

Atsushi gives her the Miss world trophy!!


You can check the past entries here.





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Wanna see Atsushi's Waka Waka?

Hi! Ken here.

I’m finally feeling better now!

I heard that in Japan, since the Japanese national team was eliminated, it seems like the World Cup is already over, but here in South Africa, the World Cup is reaching its climax with the game for third place and the final remaining.

The excitement of the people here is also reaching its climax!

We made the trip from our “home” in Johannesburg to go to see both semi-finals in Durban and Cape Town.

At Green Stadium in Cape Town, we participated in the “Waka Waka” dance contest at the Sony booth.

By the way, do you guys know what “Waka Waka” is?

Here in South Africa, you hear the FIFA World Cup official song “Waka Waka” wherever you go, so anyone who came to South Africa surely knows the song by heart, but I heard that “Waka Waka” is not so well known in Japan.

When I first heard the song “Waka Waka” sung by Colombia’s pop princess Shakira, I didn’t know what to think of it. But when I saw the promotion video which was made for this World Cup, I instantly became a fan.

I mentioned above that I participated in the Sony 3D event. 
Take a look at the video below.

A “Waka Waka” dance contest was held at the stadium. Fans who came to see the semi-final could participate in this contest by dancing to the high tempo song “Waka Waka”.

By the way, when I was in South Africa for the Confederation’s Cup last year, I participated in an event held by South African mobile phone company, MTN, and won a prize. Check out the video here!

So this time, Atsushi represented Japan in the “Waka Waka” dance contest.

Check out this video to see Atsushi’s “Waka Waka” dance… and, the results!

The judges of this dance contest are the fans who stood around to watch.

The MC really liked Atsushi’s dance, and he won the contest!!

Here’s a picture of Atsushi with the MC of the event.

He won a Sony t-shirt and PSP software as the grand prize!!

Here is Atsushi with the South African 
who competed against him until the final round.

This Sony event booth is set up at all of the stadiums along with the other World Cup sponsors’ booths.

A lot of fans come to the booth to see the 3D video which is one of the highlighted products at this World Cup.

There’s a long line at the Sony booth at each game.

At the booth you can see Shakira’s “Waka Waka” promotion video in 3D!

Everyone has their eyes (covered with 3D glasses) glued to the screen.

No matter how many times you watch it, you never get tired of it.

By the way, the official World Cup album is on sale from Sony Music.

The album includes not only Shakira’s “Waka Waka”, but also the South African traditional song “Shosholoza”.

It’s too bad that because of the noisy vuvuzelas, “Shosholoza” wasn’t sung at the stadium. If you watch the movie “Invicutus” which is based on the true story of Nelson Mandela, you can hear the “Shosholoza”.

Did you know that Sony is the only Japanese company which is a FIFA official sponsor?

Many Japanese companies have sponsored the FIFA World Cup and other soccer events in the past.

Lots of foreign companies, including some from developing countries, are FIFA official sponsors. I hear that Sony will be an official sponsor at least until the World Cup 2014 in Brazil.

Of course it’s a good thing to have companies from a variety of countries at the World Cup, but I hope that more Japanese companies will get involved.

Anyway, after warming up with the “Waka Waka”, we went into the stadium to watch Uruguay play the Netherlands in the semi-final.

As usual, I won’t get into the details of the game.

Enjoy “Miss World Cup”!!

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Soccer ball makes children in South Africa happy!!

Hello, this is Atsushi.

Watching two quarterfinals at the stadium, I am gradually getting over the fact that Japan has lost the game. 

Thank you for a lot of encouragement. 

Although the Japanese national team won’t play anymore, the World Cup is still going on. 

So, switching our moods, we will keep writing in South Africa.

The day after the game of Japan against Paraguay, I visited a primary school in a township, the Diepsloot region in the suburbs of Johannesburg. 

Township is a district where black people used to live during the apartheid era.

The purpose of this visit is to give soccer balls to underprivileged children.

For those not familiar with this charity, I will explain a little more detail about what we have done so far.

With a catch-phrase “Football Unites the World”, we sell Libero original T-shirts as charity. 500 yen from every T-shirt sale goes to the charity funds to buy soccer balls for underprivileged children in Latin America and Africa. 

We’ve already given soccer balls to children in Paraguay, Algeria and Thailand. 

Due to safety issues, it is fairly difficult to find the places to do charity in South Africa. Even though Libero enjoy going to wherever we want, we are not brave enough to drop at a primary school in South Africa at random. We asked a local Japanese resident to introduce a staff member working at Education Ministry, who introduced a primary school teacher to us.

Then, it happened to be the day after the match of Japan against Paraguay. I was by no means in a mood of visiting them, but I had to go. It would be offensive to say, “Please rearrange the date because we still remain deep in the shock of the loss yesterday.

Ken stayed home because he was sick. Instead, I was accompanied by a newspaper journalist who was interested in this charity.

Since the primary school is located in a township, 

we had no choice but to pass by rough areas.  

The newspaper journalist was secretly taking pictures with great cautions, as even taking a picture out of the car window itself could be very dangerous. 

Those walking along the street were all black people. No white people or Asians were there. It’s been a long time since I felt so nervous in a car.

Anyhow, we managed to reach the primary school.

 Diepsloot West Primary School

Compared to the old houses in the neighborhood, this primary school looked really good, as may be expected of public school.

I guess they have just built the school buildings. 

They looked quite new.

School is on a winter vacation now. Children were playing football in the courtyard as a holiday program, with teachers working as referees.

You can see the houses in township all around behind the courtyard.

I greeted the teacher I had contacted before, asking him to gather children.

I brought five soccer balls I had bought at shopping center before.

I asked these children in English if they knew which country this blue uniform represented. They energetically answered all at once, “Japan!!”.

Before the start of World Cup, local people didn’t know well about Japanese national team. I was even asked by a cashier at a supermarket, “Where are you from? Japan? Well, is Japan in the World Cup?” But now, many people, seeing this blue uniform, speak to me, saying “Japan, Japan”

So, I realized again that Japanese national team had achieved a great thing. Enormous is the impact of advancing to the final 16.

I was surrounded by children eager to play football.

The newspaper journalist wanted to take a photo with me handing a soccer ball over the children.

 500 yen from each T-shirt sale has led to smile of these children.

A teacher said, “Quite a few children growing up in a poor family are led into delinquency. If they have something they can commit themselves to, such as football, they should get on the right track. Thank you for helping us to organize such environment.

Finally, we took a group photo.

I showed them the Japanese way of taking a picture: “Piece!!”

I hope one of them will become a national team member of South Africa in the future.

The article of this charity appeared on the local news section in evening edition of Nihon Keizai Shimbun on July 3rd.

The headline is “Passing soccer balls to children in South Africa. Japanese supporters keep mingling with local people”. This article was covered extensively with a picture.  Since this is the past newspaper, it may be impossible to get it in the store. But if you happen to subscribe the evening version of Nihon Keizai Shimbun, please take a look.

Anyway, as a part of this charity, Ken visited Bangkok in Thailand last May. Ken gave the collected donation to Yutaka Aihara, who is in charge of organizing soccer school for children in Bangkok. This donation was used for making training bibs. He sent us some of the pictures.

 Middle: Yutaka Aihara, who organizes soccer school in Bangkok.

 You can see the catch-phrase of this charity: “Football Unites the World”.

You can also see the letters in Japanese above the uniform number, which means “traveling all over the world with football” in Japanese.

If you agree with the idea of this charity, please purchase this T-shirt through the URL below.

About purchase of T-shirts: http://www.libero2010.net/store

If you're inconvenient with the language, please e-mail us directly.

They are worth buying as a reminder of this 2010 South Africa World Cup, as the national flags of 32 countries which joined the World Cup are printed on the front of this T-shirt.

In this journey, this is the last opportunity for us to give soccer balls to underprivileged children. However, we will have chance to travel overseas in the future, where we continue this kind of charity.

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