Footie in J-land

My love of footie hasn’t faded away since being here in J-land. Being a Brit, I think, it’s in the blood. But sometimes the beautiful game is sometimes lost in translation. Imagine your rooting for your favourite team and the commentators are speaking in another language, then you'll be a liitle at a lost. And sometimes it loses the whole intensity of the match. However, I'm just glad the Premier League is, on occasion, broadcasted on NHK BS1 or BS2 terrestrial channel especially when the Big Four play. Or if you’re really loaded you can subscribe to J-sports, a cable sports channel and it’ll inundate you of all the fixtures, matches and results so you don't miss a thing. It's kinda like Sky sports back home. But what’s disappointing, as well as kinda acceptable at times, is calling footie soccer in J-land. Due to the US influence of American Football, it's fairly big here too and the growing popularity of footie, Japan and South Korea having hosted the World Cup, one needs to differentiate the other. However, clarification is still needed when talking about the beautiful game. When one mentions football, the other might say 'oh you mean soccer'. And when one pronounces it, it's so strong that it sounds like ‘sucker’ as if someone’s cursing you. If you say 'sucker', the other will probably say 'oh you mean football'. You can’t win! Some J-peeps either devote to call it ‘football’ or ‘sucker’. Maybe it’s because they both learn British and American English and would rather stick to one style. Furthermore, to add to the mayhem, Australian English may have a different notion to it all.

It is a funny old sport. Spirits run high with this game. The J-peeps adore footie. Popularity is increasing so rapidly that it may challenge baseball in the future as Japan’s No. 1 sport. Come on!