I wrote this post about the Women’s Soccer World Cup championship game being played by Japan against the USA today.
As you probably already know, Japan won the game in penalty kicks.
Here’s a video I found on Youtube that shows the penalty kick attempts by both the USA and Japan.
The announcers in the video sound English. I don’t often watch TV in English anymore…so what mostly got my attention when I watched this video was the way the announcers butchered the Japanese players’ names! 😉
The video ends before it has a chance to show Japan’s team celebrating their win as the 2011 Women’s World Cup Champions.
But here’s what it looked like:
Did you watch the game?
It started at 3:45AM Japan time so I didn’t stay up to watch it. I saw the highlights on the news this morning.
On the news here, they also had a Japanese reporter and cameraman in a sports-bar in New York during the game to get the American fans’ reactions.
Each time the U.S. team scored a goal, the Americans in the bar erupted into a “USA! USA! USA!” chant. I guess I’ve been living in Japan so long that I was taken by surprise a bit by that. It was like a culture shock! 😉
Tokyo Five 
Why cant they name the women’s team beautifully like the Samurai Blues eh ..i didnt get to watch the game but was happy for Japan to win the World Cup, that would give a good boost to the country isnt it? The Samurai Blues should learn from the women’s team a thing or two or three on how to do a perfect penalty kick!! So CONGRATULATIONS JAPAN !!
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>Why cant they name the women’s team beautifully like the Samurai Blues
You’re referring to my comment here.
Well, “Samurai” are masculine so it would be an odd name for a women’s team.
And, to Japanese people, the image of “Nadeshiko” is beautiful. A traditional, graceful Japanese woman.
>i didnt get to watch the game but was happy for Japan to win the World Cup
Did it air too late at night there? It was nearly 4AM here at kick-off time. I didn’t watch it lie either. The news highlights was enough for me.
>a good boost to the country isnt it?
Yes, it was a moral booster.
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I watched the game so I was sleepy that day.
Thank you for commenting the game and supporting Japan.:)
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Did you stay up to watch it?
Personally I don’t enjoy soccer that much to stay up so late. 😉 The highlights on the news the next day was enough for me.
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I wake up early time.I watched only this game. I could enjoy soccer although I’m not a soccer fan specially.
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>I could enjoy soccer although I’m not a soccer fan
Especially since Japan won! 😉
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I forgot to mention in this post….the Japanese men’s soccer team are nicknamed “Samurai Blue“—and the Japanese women’s soccer team are called “Nadeshiko Japan“, which means something like “Traditional Japanese women”.
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Kumaga? It’s Kumagai. The pronunciation of the Japanese names is horrendous. Wow. You’d think they’d at least get a briefing on the pronunciations of players’ names.
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They mispronounced most of the Japanese names they said. 😉
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Yeah, but they completely missed an entire syllable in Kumagai. I remember when the 2006 Olympics were on, and they announced Miki Ando as Mickey Andu.
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>the 2006 Olympics…they announced Miki Ando as Mickey Andu.
Did they?
Oh well, we’re used to Japanese names so we can notice mispronunciations easily.
But I’m sure I’d slaughter French, Russian, Vietnamese, etc names just as badly. 😉
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My husband and I are disappointed, BUT my mother is in 7th heaven! We know who she was rooting for.
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Weren’t you supporting Japan too?
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