About an hour by bus It takes from Tokyo Bay, where most of the Olympic Games, to the Saitama Stadium, which shares name with the city and prefecture where it is located.
The trip is worth it because there is a good football game.
A Japan-Spain.
Semifinals
The hostess who has reconciled a part of Japanese apatheics with her games, against one of the favorite selections to win gold.
Having timely accreditation to enter and with plenty of time to accommodate the press gallery with a privileged view of a super empty stadium, it is only worth missing the first minutes of the party to chat for a while with the young Hiroki.
He will not see it because he is one of the volunteers of the games to them to stay out to watch that no pretentious amateur signs in the stadium, jumping against anti covid regulations.
“We have thrown away from several volunteers to see who climbed the stands, I feel sorry because I really like football, I’m from Barça and I wanted to see Pedri and Kubo play in the same field. Then I’ll put the game repeated in
house, “he says.
Hiroki met him last week working on a golf course that is the Olympic headquarters of that sport, which is near the football stadium.
And he has gone to some basketball games on the Super Arena court, also in Saitama.
He has worked a lot.
And free.
Because the organization to volunteers only feed them and a ticket per day of 1,000 yen (7.7 euros) for transportation.
But the interesting thing is that with Hiroki he put us in touch for the first time his grandmother, Keiko Ogura, which is a hibakusha.
It is the term with which the 136,700 survivors of the atomic pumps of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remaining alive.
Keiko is 84 years old and for decades being one of the official narrators of what happened in Hiroshima is just 76 years ago.
She has traveled throughout Japan, giving talks in colleges and universities, so that the youngest as the grandson of her know the story of her and that of other survivors, so that the horror occurred does not fall into oblivion.
But this story is not going on a nine-year-old girl who saw a white flash and then fall black rain after the first atomic bomb, nor about the charred corpses he had to dodge until he got home to see if his parents were alive.
Here we are to talk about the game.
But the first part has been so insipida that any note on Keiko Ogura is more interesting when writing these first paragraphs during the break.
The grandson of her Hiroki has not been lost any dance from her admired Pedri and Kubo on the grass of Saitama.
To boredom of the first 45 minutes also accompanies that there is no public in a stadium that has capacity for 63,700 people.
And that the organization has tried a strange sound environment that comes out of megaphones, but that does not consider any lance of the game.
The classic murmur when a team stalks the opposite area is heard in a throw-in.
Or, suddenly, there are many illogical whistles in a Japanese goalkeeper’s door.
The first moment of the party in which there is some real nerve in the stand is when the referee consults the VAL to rectify his decision to bend a penalty in favor of Spain in the 55th minute. At that time, Japanese journalists hit a jump
Of his armchairs and begin to applaud and jelly.
At least someone has been encouraged a bit in the sleeping temple of Saitama.
“This is the stadium of one of the best historical teams of Japan, the Urawa Red, and was built for the 2002 World Cup,” explains Miyaka Daisuke, from Japanese newspaper Tokyo Sports.
Every time the end of the second part approaches, Miyaka and his colleagues are getting more and more in the role of ultras to see that Japan is not only holding a superior selection like Spain, but has come a couple of times
With danger the rival area.
Now you do not need the false ambient sound because Japanese journalists applaud both a failed hand hand from Rafa Mir in the 75th minute, as a good race from his striker, Daichi Hayashi, to put pressure on Unai Simón at the ball goes off
.
End of 90 minutes.
Tie without goals celebrating Japanese.
The party in the extension maintains the infamous rhythm to the Zurdazo of Asensio.
“You do not deserve it. Japan was playing better,” says Miyaka very quiet and polite.
Because the Japanese, even if they try to put on the ultras costume, almost never get angry.
