Sports

I watched football games, Euro Cup 2008, and Wimbledon Tennis. I did not watch these games when I was in Japan. What happened to me?

One of the main reasons is that I try to act like British people. They enjoy watching these games, so I would like to share their feelings. Also it is a good topic when I do not have any common things to talk about. I can talk about sports without worrying about complicated matters like politics or religion.

If I watched games more, I would understand the rules better. I am gradually getting in to watching football and tennis. Still I never have tried to watch Cricket. Once my English teacher explained about the rules, but none of class mates understood it. I imaged that its rules are similar to those of baseball.

In Europe, many people do not even know the rules of baseball. Once I tried to explain to my friend about baseball. In my opinion, baseball is good, not only physical, but also mental. Each player is more concerned about winning for the team than about their own glory. This kind of mental team-play has strong connections to the Japanese way of thinking. That is why the Japanese love baseball. However my friend told me, “If you're talking about team-play, football is also team play. We cannot play it alone. And you say baseball matches the Japanese way of thinking, but it came from America.” I see. Football could be more popular than baseball in Japan soon. Actually for the younger generation, football may have already became more popular than baseball.