Why we decided to get behind JOEpan for World Cup glory

Picking a World Cup team to support in the absence of Ireland is hard, but we fell head over heels for Japan... we mean JOEpan.

With 32 teams to choose from, selecting a team to back here in JOE Towers was a thorny business. There were arguments, walk-outs, water thrown dramatically and at least one incident that will ultimately end up before the courts so we can't talk about here. Brazil and the other big boys were too easy, but we also wanted a team that would give us a bit of a run for our money. Plus, if they played good football it would be a help. We put all that criteria into the big super-computer we have here (a Commodore 64 with a copy of Paperboy stuck in the tape player) and a few nominees emerged. But in the end, there was really only one clear winner; the Samurai Blue themselves; Japan. From their beautiful shirts to a stylish way of playing, they really should be the thinking man's pick in Brazil. That their name works well with ours is purely a coincidence. Honest. Our brave boys are in a hell of a group, lumped in with Colombia, Greece and Ivory Coast in Group C. It is easily the hardest of all the groups to call and there is almost nothing in the betting between Japan, Ivory Coast and Greece. We think our lads, with wily Italian Alberto Zaccheroni at the helm, can lead the Asian Cup winners into the second round. Second spot in the group would tee up a tie with the Group D winner, which could be Italy, could be Uruguay, could be England but definitely won't be Costa Rica. See? Easy. From there the path to glory is projected to be Spain, Argentina and the Brazil. Getting easier as you can see. We can't see anyone, ANYONE stopping our Honda/Kagawa powered boys in blue, even in their somewhat arresting away kit. Here at JOEKYO Towers we already have the jerseys, we have the flags and we are going to try and live on an exclusively Japanese diet for the duration, or at least we will until the sushi restaurant around the corner gets fed up of us asking for tomato sauce and kicks us out. We'll do our best to provide daily JOEpan updates each morning and we might even live tweet their games, if we stay awake past 2am on Saturday night of course. If there is any more Japanese stuff we should be doing/wearing/eating, do let us know. Anything we can do to power our boys to a maiden World Cup success on July 13 is worth a shot. Our motto will be 圧力下に置く, or as you probably know it better, Put Em Under Pressure. Unless Google Translate has lied to us.