 Hi, welcome to the second episode of News Clicks Dispatches from Russia. And in this episode we are talking about Japan, Japan, Japan, Japan is the buzzword in Russia and imagine that at a World Cup we are talking about Japan, an Asian country. Such has been the opening week of the World Cup, there have been many surprises. Japan beating a South American nation, Columbia for the first time, that's a big thing. Along with that, Mexico beating Germany, Russia qualifying for the next round. So there's a lot of talking points, a lot of surprises and we at News Clicks are trying to figure out whether these are cases of a team punching above their weight, a fluke for instance or is it that they are finally started playing to their own potential. We have in News Clicks studio today, Vyber Wregudan then a football writer and joining us from Russia is Siddhant Anay. So hi Siddhant, where are you this day? Which match are you following this evening there? I guess it would be afternoon there. Yeah, actually I live near Vyber Wregudan, I have actually just arrived earlier today in like a living booth which is the farthest east that this tournament goes. It's on the border of Europe and Asia. I'm almost in the same time zone as you guys, just half an hour off. How did you get there? By train. Nice long train journey. Yes, fairly long overnight but good comfortable train. Pretty similar to what we have on. Pretty similar to the Dibrugar Rajdhani. Talking about trains, I guess you must have had some chance to talk to some of the fans travelling for this match or how did the journey go? Yeah, so how they've done it is that they are getting in between two and from each match from various cities. So this game, the same was from Qadan and it came in carrying France and the Loupan for the most part. So the restaurant car was pretty much like an open bar all night. So the gentleman I was sharing with was from Peru and we travelled all the way down from there and his following team around and of course we said that it was a good match but fairly optimistic I think of their team's chances. I guess we have to be a bit of a bird to compete. And the fans are, large numbers of Peru fans actually, much more than the 10 people. What extremes did your co-passenger go to? Because we've heard of a Peru fan who put on a massive amount of weight to get tickets in the extra or whatever in the section that allows you extra privileges. Yeah, he put on 25 kilos. He wasn't that guy and I'm not sure how much of a hard ship putting on 25 kilos and maybe he just drank beer for like three months. But no, I mean there's a bit of a lack of value because they speak Spanish mostly. So I didn't get it, too many details on his journey here but it looked like influence to Moscow and then from there every traffic around to me, following his team. Getting 25 kilos, it's like weight of expectations in a way. Yeah, so just use that as an entry point basically to get into Japan who has come into this world cup without any weight of expectations as such. But what an amazing display and it's the talk of the town now I guess. Actually here Lesley and me have slightly differing opinions. Lesley thinks it was an amazing display and I think it was a bit fluky simply because Columbia were essentially down to 10 men within three minutes of the game and for a significant period of the game they controlled the... Yeah, I mean so you know this, both aspects, I don't think the red card was a fluke. It was clear sending off. And after that happened particularly so early in the game when a team is at least on paper considered an outright favorite expected to dominate for two things. It's still incumbent on Japan in this case to take advantage of that positioning and all that and the coach in fact said it wasn't too happy with the way they ended the first half but in the second half the positioning got better and they were able to utilize the minor advantage because they were in the right place at the right time. So it was for me, I mean that was like, I don't know if you guys remember and this is a really maybe off the charts comparison but when Bangalore team went down to 10 men in the super cup. They were still able to sort of establish dominance over the opposition despite being a man down just because they were so much better. Now in the case of Colombia and Japan, either Colombia were not able to exploit or get together as a team but definitely Japan were aggressive, they were on the ball, they were, I mean they were making good decisions and they had I think in their team for a ton of experience which at this level makes I think a big difference. I don't know why we are seeing all these results both the way they are because they are a lot of young sports, a lot of big countries have heated young players taking this competition. Japan have a few guys who have 100 caps already who have seen everything they could see in football so so maybe they are thinking at the right time. Exactly, so it takes two hands to clap actually so Colombia going down by a man but Japan still had to establish their play, Japan still had to score, Japan still had to see through the 90 minutes and they did beautifully and so the question now is Japan's result or the result of for instance Mexico against Germany the defending champions and Russia the host I mean I'm sure that's a celebration over there now they ensuring the knockout birth all these things are they pointing at I mean like Vaibhav said is it punching above the weight I would put it as that rather than a fluke are they punching above the weight or is it that they have finally started playing to their potential because these countries I mean at the end of the day they have already made it to the World Cup and it takes something to be there Yeah definitely I mean for Russia it didn't take Germany doing a few billion dollars to get here but for the others yeah of course they have got through the qualification process and you can talk about how that is different for different continent and all that but it's a longer competition and maybe for a separate procedure but it's a combination of a lot of things I think there are so many major competitions for the big name players to win and to be involved in that maybe and I'm not saying this I know I don't know this in the final because it's like a little bit of a conversation or discussion maybe the motivation at the World Cup for the bigger nations is not as much as for some of these guys out to prove a point yeah of course for Messi it's a different story for Ronaldo it's a different story because they are trying to establish a level of greatness that we will never see probably in our life right now so that's a completely different equation but in general multitudes I think are able now to organize to depend with a lot of commitment a lot of gravy a lot of art and then in which you set pieces the way they do the training now you know Japan got a goal of the owner a headed goal now you would normally consider Japan as set from an aerial position an aerial sort of an aerial set not against Colombians who are maybe more physical and bigger opponents anyway so actually that game was a clean sweep that game was a clean save it was a penalty a set piece and a corner and a free kick yeah and in fact we were just doing some little statistics finding and we found that over 50% of the goals scored till now this is before the Spain game last night for us were scored via set pieces now there's a lot of theories about this I'm sure we all have our own theories but I'm just going to go out and say does VAR have something to do with this I mean there have already been more penalties awarded at this stage of the World Cup since the 1930s and that kind of kills the I mean again it goes both ways subjective but yeah it goes both ways it cleans up your I can see you're enjoying a bit of rain there yeah it's raining might have to move a little bit quickly in case it gets heavy but for now it's just a desert so it should be fine do set pieces or set free goals have to do with VAR I don't know I just think that they have to do with like a lot of time spent on training to explore these very specific scenarios and muscle memory, blah blah blah I mean, India under 17 the only goal we scored at the World Cup was also of a set free so I'm not saying that it's completely transformed into a physical sport but at the highest levels where there's a lot of stake and there's plenty to do so I think teams tend to be very organized and play by the goal why I'm talking about VAR here is because usually in set pieces especially balls that are going to be driven into the box there's a lot of wrestling and you know it's something that you see in football in the Premier League especially really often have defenders become a little cautious about this physicality about the wrestling simply because they know that big brothers watching and that is fueling actually the criticism that football has always had I mean if you put it in blunt terms lot of sissies they fall, they cry so as this gay, as this thing taken out the physicality the physicality of the game and how VAR is influencing that I don't think that the physicality has been removed by VAR such as the drama that some of you get through is a consequence of television and I mean personally I think none of us like it but the interesting thing about that whole argument is that hopefully VAR can also be used to punish some of these guys who overdue the drama and not just in cases of penalties and goals I mean if a guy is dining I think I know why he shouldn't be getting a yellow card to VAR by the same logic that he can give away a penalty for his opponent so yeah I think that hopefully we will see the system evolving I mean to drive something out another world cup is a bit of the charts I guess I guess that gives the right attention actually it deserves because I mean they do well or fail that's the best platform because the proof would be out there do well or fail reminds me that was pretty much a do well or fail moment for Russia and they seem to have done well no at the world cup I mean as far as whatever coverage or whatever reportage I had read before the world cup all spoke about how the Russian media and the Russian public had very little hopes from their team to a point where the team itself was extremely disillusioned by talking to the, about talking to the media and about talking to people and coming out in public and well as of now I'm going to ask you the simplest question can they win the world cup that would be I'm serious like those guys seem to run like 7000 kilometers a game like maybe I've been here a few days so maybe some of the sort of prevalent pessimism about the national team has run for me so I don't think that that is a possibility but I think more people will come out like so I was not in the city where the Russia game was happening we tried to go to the pantheon in Kalan to watch it and it was, I mean there were a hundred times when twice the number of people outside weren't waiting to get in so the country has warmed up to the tournament and he's throwing a bit of love to their team now for sure and they're playing well I think they're playing I mean a couple of the goals they scored have been simple football but passing the ball is actually passing it with he and taking advantage of the goals they're not played against the referee's draw well they'll get a chance in the next round it's going to be and it's interesting that you mentioned simple football so what is your take on the first week of action as teams did well because they have done the basics right I mean what I mean is that the teams who have won have won because they play simple football back to basic simple stuff the thing about international football is that you do here very little time as a collective unit to work out a specific playing style I mean Argentina will not be Barcelona and you know Russia is not going to be Zenit St. Petersburg so as a collective I guess is it like a is it the teams that have come together as a collective and just formed a simple chemistry between themselves that seem to be doing well is there something to be learned is there any logic to what is happening in Russia now I mean what you're saying a lot of these like Antoine Wiesman, video data they both came out after the first trans game and said exactly this we're playing a new formation it's a different setup with Ben Bely and Parpe Wiesman playing in front they're not used to that kind of they have played together so I don't then entirely buy the argument I don't think it should take fantastic players more than a couple of days of playing a ball together to get a sense of how it works because they all play at an extremely extremely high standard as a club that they play at and also they are very gifted I mean this is a sport that they've been playing for all their life so it's not like they have to learn something completely but again the I mean this is while you're saying this it also immediately what I can think of is Spain 2010 and Germany 2014 a majority of the players in those two sides were from at the most two clubs that sort of situation doesn't often happen in world football where everyone is all over the field so if you have a you're lucky enough that the entire for example transport work but then that would kill the competitiveness of the domestic football completely so it has to be it is worth it Siddhan that's to leave us in a hurry because he has to catch the shuttle to reach the stadium for the France versus Peru match we are winding up this episode of Dispatch from Russia and until next time we will have a clearer picture of which are the other teams who are qualified and also the trend as to what is happening at the World Cup is it defying logic or is it will it get back to the usual norms that world football is all about till then happy viewing guys enjoy the World Cup and have a great match Siddhan Thank you see you guys