In Women's World Cup, hard to root against Japan

The essence of international sports comes straight into your living room with Sunday's final of the Women's World Cup. There will be individual honor and plays to be remembered, but the game between the United States and Japan is mostly about the very spirit of the respective countries.

Japan's northeastern seaboard remains devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, a natural catastrophe believed to have killed more than 15,000 people. The women's team has been respectable for years - team captain Homare Sawa is playing in her fifth World Cup - but hadn't previously been bent on dominance at the highest level. Over the past month, these women have found a higher calling, a chance to bring joy to their homeland, and for the first time in their lives, they believe they actually can win it all.

"They're playing for something bigger and better than the game," U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo told reporters in Germany. "I've found myself being sentimental toward their cause. When a team is playing with so much emotion, that's hard to play against."



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/15/SP3K1KB61F.DTL#ixzz1SHshhiZU

It's a game. Best of luck to both teams.

and hopefully, bring a little excitement to the world's most boring sport.

Now baseball...talk about boring

for the US in most competitions.

And really, if we need teams from nations that need help, I think a Haiti/ Myanmar final would do it for me.

Yes, it's a touching story, but it's over played and while we rightly help Japan recover, we wrongly ignore troubles in the third world.

What I like is the Japanese team that plays a cohesive style of football without stars. It's very fun to watch their high quality football.

Peace,
Tex Shelters