A Brave New Japan

-#include virtual="/time/worldcup2002/includes/0527m_stories.htm"-->It was only a draw against a sub-par team, but for Japan, Tuesday night's 2-2 tie against Belgium carried much more symbolic, and emotional meaning than the score reveals.

This was Japan's coming-out party, a long-awaited chance for the rest of the world to see that this was a different soccer team than the one that could muster just one goal in France four years ago — and that this is a very different country ,too.

The team's coach, Frenchman Philippe Troussier, has been the magnet for both criticism and devotion in Japan since taking charge four years ago. He's bullied the players, physically pushed them, derided Japanese culture, dissed his star player and insulted his team, at times, as a bunch of pampered cry-babies. He's compared himself to a latter-day samurai who has set out to not only instill some soccer scholarship, but to do no less than reform Japan. "I'm satisfied from a historical point of view," the demanding coach said after the game, as Japan, playing in its second World Cup, managed its first point. "We were lucky to have this fans' atmosphere behind us," he said. "It is a young atmosphere, fresh, dynamic. I call it the New Japan."

The team looked new. Start with hair that made the team look like a bunch of Swedish rejects. There were 7 blondes, 3 redheads and one guy with a shaved pate on the field. The only dark hair came from a Brazilian import, Alex Santos, who substituted in the second half. Their play, predictably, lacked aggressiveness and passion in the first half, as they controlled the ball but seemed allergic to the goal. Belgium didn't look any better. But they're bigger and stronger, and it appeared they would triumph in the end through sheer brute force.

This usual script for Japan — scrappy team, not physical enough compete with the big boys — was unfolding yet again when Belgium's veteran, Marc Wilmots, struck first blood in the 57th minute with a bicycle kick.

But then something different happened. Japan came alive. Two minutes later, Takayuki Suzuki (one of the blondes) raced past a defender and right-footed Japan's first goal. The crowd, dressed in a sea of blue, Japan's team colors, went berserk. This, too, was new. Japanese crowds don't do berserk. They do rhythmic cheering. They do polite applause. They don't go wild. But the fans, all but a handful of the 55,256 on hand were dressed in Japan blue, helped inject some energy into the game. This was a different shade of Japan, too, these soccer-mad fans dressed in bright blue Afro wigs that made them look like a hydrangea garden. "We have to win! We have to win!" shouted one young fan who wore a headband like the one worn by kamikaze pilots in World War II. "It is time for Japan!"

Eight minutes later, Japan went ahead on a goal from an unlikely source, the sluggish Junichi Inamoto, who was spent much of the past on the bench for Arsenal in England's premier league. It almost didn't matter that Belgium would tie the score. For Japan, not losing was enough.

This World Cup, co-hosted by historical enemies Japan and South Korea, was threatening to become something of a World Cup fiasco for Japan. Asian teams weren't winning anything. The country was obsessed with sniffing out troublemaking English hooligans. The two host countries squabbled over planning details. And then a breakdown in ticket sales — thousands of seats have been empty in the games so far — has become an embarrassment . A large sign hung by fans inside the stadium in Urawa on Tuesday read simply: "Where are the tickets?"

On Tuesday, organizers announced there were in fact tickets available and promised to put them up for sale on web sites and by telephone. Most fans couldn't figure out how to buy them, and one man in Japan lost it on Tuesday and attacked a ticket kiosk after waiting for several hours to buy tickets that ultimately never materialized. Makoto Iwashita, a 26-year-old computer science graduate student managed to score four tickets by logging on to a ticket web site at 3 a.m. on Sunday. "I spent 12 hours trying to get on the web site," he said. "The ticket problem is very strange. It makes us look bad to the rest of the world."

Maybe, though, 90 minutes of soccer on Tuesday night changed that perception, and Japan finally has arrived in the world of soccer. Blond strikers, red-headed defensemen and blue-afroed fans can have that effect.