Hope lives on for the Samurai Blue. The Japan soccer team flirted with disaster against Croatia at the World Cup yesterday but lived to fight another day. A series of saves, including an early penalty, by goalkeeper Kawaguchi Yoshikatsu kept the hopes of the nation alive. With the game played in searing heat, the players were reduced to the same exhaustion that was their undoing in the loss to Australia. The last 20 minutes saw a series of embarassing mistakes and missed chances by both teams. But this time the game ended scoreless, probably a fitting result and one that leaves all three teams with a chance to join Brazil in the next round. With their place secure after a 2-0 defeat of the Aussies, it’s possible that the Brazilians will field a less than full strength squad for the final group matchon June 23. And so Japanese fans still have a reason to tune in for that game, even though it kicks off at 4am local time.
Audience ratings for last night’s broadcast of the game on TV Asahi are expected to beat the 49% that NHK managed for the Australia game, and maybe even the 66.1% that watched Fuji TV’s broadcast of the Japan-Russia game in 2002. The highest rating last year was for a soccer game, Japan beating North Korea in its final World Cup qualifier, and that was also shown on TV Asahi. If the network manages to pull the highest rating for this year, it will be the first time a private network has done so two years in a row.
• Sekine Mari (21), daughter of popular talento Sekine Tsutomu (52), has made her showbiz debut. In May she graduated at the top of her class from Emerson College in Boston, where she studied Marketing Communication. She had considered joining one of Japan’s top ad agencies, but this month she joined the Asai Kikaku management agency that handles her father’s busy schedule. She got off to a busy start herself on Saturday, appearing on three different shows.