Quote Of The Day

"I'm a soccer fan first, a person second."

- John Oliver, Senior "Football" correspondent for The Daily Show.

Jon Stewart weighs in on Iraq’s Asian Cup Championship [World Cup Blog]

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Nutjob, Or Crazy Like A Fox?

I know there's no crying in baseball, but we've all seen plenty of crying in soccer. But it's mostly on the field, after a tough loss, where every ounce of energy and spirit has been exhausted. How about reducing your interpreter to tears as you unload on your team for dropping points to the 85th ranked team in the world? Money quote:

The breaking point came when [Ivica] Osim tore a strip off his players after Japan blew a chance to take all three points from Qatar on Monday. The rant was all too much for [Zen] Chida, who, according to midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura, broke down in tears while attempting to relay the vitriol.

"He reduced Chida to tears," Nakamura told reporters after the match. "He could only translate half of what Osim said because the coach was so angry. Chida later told me the coach had said he thought Japan was like a heavyweight fighting against a lightweight. He felt we should have won by five goals."

Whether this spurs Japan on, or ruins them, will be revealed soon enough. Next up for the two-time defending Asian Cup champs is the United Arab Emirates on Friday, who lost 2-0 to co-host Vietnam in the Group B opener on Sunday.

There's no crying in soccer ... or is there? [Asahi Shimbun]
Japan foiled in final minutes [Daily Yomiuri]

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Representing A Broken Country

Iraq's Brazilian coach gives the Guardian's Matthew Hall a little taste of what it's like to lead a team through the chaos that is present-day Iraq:

"You cannot imagine it. I am in a real Arabic souk. Every day, I don't know where we will go for training. Every day, people want to meet with me for two or three hours a day to discuss the players. Today, I kicked a chair. I kicked everything."

As Jorvan Vieira readies his team for the upcoming Asian Cup, he has the Iraqi national team training in Amman, Jordan. Though safer than Baghdad, because of a mounting Iraqi refugee problem, things can be a little taxing in Jordan:

"When some players arrived here in Amman they had to wait six or seven hours at the airport," Vieira explained. "The Jordanian police would not allow them to come into the country. Nobody did anything, nobody moved, nobody wrote a list of players to tell the government that this is the Iraq national team. The players suffered only because they had Iraqi passports."

Iraq has been grouped with Thailand, Australia, and Oman at the Asian Cup with hopes that some of the success the Olympic team had in Athens, rubs off on them. They kick off the tournament against co-host Thailand on Saturday.

'If some of these players go home they will be killed' [Guardian]

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