Chungy on a busman's holiday.

[midnitefooty]

Hope your pub withstood that game. I can imagine it was tense in there.

Good luck to you Aussies. Hope you win it all.

[boltonboris]

You want the Australians to win at something??????

You obviously don't have to put up with any of the gloating bastards! They could win a raffle and they'd rub it in your face, as though somehow, they're better than you!!

[Horza]

You want the Australians to win at something??????

You obviously don't have to put up with any of the gloating bastards! They could win a raffle and they'd rub it in your face, as though somehow, they're better than you!!

How you feel about us, times a billion is how they feel about Japan winning.

Hope your pub withstood that game. I can imagine it was tense in there.

Good luck to you Aussies. Hope you win it all.

Cheers man, tough luck with the penalties (all of them), was hoping for a rematch but will have to settle for pissing in Nippon's konfureiku (again )

[seanworth]

A good night it was and the staff are a bit tired today. Some of the japanese customers are offering bottles of whiskey for each of the staff if they win against Australia. So good luck for the Aussies getting any support from this bar. Can't even get a tip out of them.

[boltonboris]

How you feel about us, times a billion is how they feel about Japan winning.

Ah right. I know they're fairly close geographically and probably culturally, but didn't know of any intense rivalry

[Horza]

How you feel about us, times a billion is how they feel about Japan winning.

Ah right. I know they're fairly close geographically and probably culturally, but didn't know of any intense rivalry

Not close culturally, they may have emerged from some proto-North East Asian ethnolinguistic group but the branch-off was maybe two and a half millenia ago at the latest. Since then they've both picked up Chinese influences but stuck to their own thing, resulting in Korean being a language isolate and the country being a hermit kingdom until the late 1800s.

Historically they don't get along at all, as whenever Japan leaves an isolationist period (1590s, 1870-1945) it tends to invade Korea with horrific results for the invadee. The 1910-45 occupation was a period of brutal exploitation and cultural genocide that has left deep scars and the healing hasn't been helped by the Japanese tendency to amnesia: "Oh that forty year colonial regime! Don't tell me you guys are still worked-up about that!?".

Consequently, beating Japan is a huge deal for Korea; much more intense than England's fleeting attempts to usurp the natural sporting order of things.

[midnitefooty]

Anyway, all that aside, I'm over the loss now.
Chungy had an awful tournament so don't expect him to be brimming with confidence when he gets back.

[SonsOfThunder]

He's probably dead-tired too. I hope he doesn't play the rather meaningless 3rd-4th place match. At all.

[Montreal Wanderer]

How you feel about us, times a billion is how they feel about Japan winning.

Ah right. I know they're fairly close geographically and probably culturally, but didn't know of any intense rivalry

Not close culturally, they may have emerged from some proto-North East Asian ethnolinguistic group but the branch-off was maybe two and a half millenia ago at the latest. Since then they've both picked up Chinese influences but stuck to their own thing, resulting in Korean being a language isolate and the country being a hermit kingdom until the late 1800s.

Historically they don't get along at all, as whenever Japan leaves an isolationist period (1590s, 1870-1945) it tends to invade Korea with horrific results for the invadee. The 1910-45 occupation was a period of brutal exploitation and cultural genocide that has left deep scars and the healing hasn't been helped by the Japanese tendency to amnesia: "Oh that forty year colonial regime! Don't tell me you guys are still worked-up about that!?".

Consequently, beating Japan is a huge deal for Korea; much more intense than England's fleeting attempts to usurp the natural sporting order of things.

The Japanese during the pre-war and war period considered Koreans (and other conquered people) as less than human. Perhaps the worst thing they did was take thousand of young Korean women and made them sex slaves of the Imperial army. They were known as comfort women and some survivors are still trying to get compensation for enforced service in the army brothels, sterilization, and worse. We must never forget what was done by Japan in this period, any more than we can forget the Holocaust or the purges of Stalin. We may not blame those born since the war, but they should not downplay the matter either.

[SonsOfThunder]

They also performed all sorts of 'experiments.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Nanking Massacre gives you an idea of what kind of people the Japanese were back then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_massacre" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Needless to say, Chinese and Koreans alike aren't too fond of the Japanese.

I'm quite impressed by the knowledge of some of you guys on the matter.

[elfil76]

He's probably dead-tired too. I hope he doesn't play the rather meaningless 3rd-4th place match. At all.

asians emphasize on face value, they will still not go down easy even it is meaningless.

[Horza]

It isn't meaningless, winner automatically qualifies for Australia 2015. He probably will play, and it will likely be a shitfight as the Uzbeks desperately want to make up for their six goal hammering by the 'Roos.

[midnitefooty]

It isn't meaningless, winner automatically qualifies for Australia 2015. He probably will play, and it will likely be a shitfight as the Uzbeks desperately want to make up for their six goal hammering by the 'Roos.

Ahhh, finally some football played near my time zone. Was rather rooting for Australia to get the '22 WC if we didn't.

Anyway, the coach has already declared that he's going with his strongest squad so Chungy will probably play. Probably.

[Horza]

That six goal pummeling for students of football massacres.

[Lord Kangana]

The British left a lot of Japanese soldier in place in SE Asia when WWII ended, to maintain law and order (read colonial control) over places we didn't have the manpower to cover, and that the Japs had already conquered. F.A.C.T. Thats why there was never the level of enquiry that the Germans faced at Nuremberg.

[Horza]

There were trials and lots of top brass were executed, it was just that it was MacArthur's show as Britain had slim (wow, pun totally not intended) to nothing to do with the defeat of Japan. UK and Commonwealth forces were occupied with campaigns that were marginal at best (Burma) or outright pointless (anything the AIF was involved with after 1943).

Even at the time the Pacific theatre was a sideshow in British public consciousness and with the end of the war and East of Suez it's receeded further into dim memory and David Bowie buried up to his head in sand.

[seanworth]

I took some Japanese friends to the River Kwai many years back. What an eye opener it was for them. They had no idea of the railway, never mind the number of people that died during its construction. Actually most people have their own cultural biases when reflecting on history. To give an example during its construction around 6,000 Brits died yet closer to 100,000 Asians died. Most people have no idea that any Asians died. I would assume that vast majority of the deaths would be Chinese. The Koreans were forced into service and thus many of the Prison Guards were likely to be Korean, and they were treated like dogs, thus they tended to take it out on the prisoners in many cases.

[SonsOfThunder]

It isn't meaningless, winner automatically qualifies for Australia 2015. He probably will play, and it will likely be a shitfight as the Uzbeks desperately want to make up for their six goal hammering by the 'Roos.

Ahhh, finally some football played near my time zone. Was rather rooting for Australia to get the '22 WC if we didn't.

Anyway, the coach has already declared that he's going with his strongest squad so Chungy will probably play. Probably.

I was afraid Cho would say something like that. I don't agree with his decision at all. Similar to starting our full squad against India(!) and burning them out by the time we got to Japan.

[RobbieSavagesLeg]

So is he back yet, will he play this week?

Think he'll be knackered, maybe a super-sub?

We must be getting back to near the squad numbers we had when we were good, so no excuses now!