Nihon TV aired "Thank You, Japan, Go! Korea" from early morning until 3:00pm right before the match, and introduced Japanese support for the partner. The show hosts described Italy's appeal on the referee decision from the past game "unreasonable" and said Team Korea should win over Spain as well.

Even Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, who is notorious for racist remarks, said at a press conference that as an Asian, he wishes Korea to achieve the best possible result. Celebrity writer Ryu Murakami, who described Korea's aggressive soccer style as peculiar, now joined the supportive opinions, and said that he is grateful Korea remains in the tournament, when Japan failed in the second round, and wished the best of luck to the exhausted team.

Members of the "Lawmakers Wishing For Successful World Cup" announced that when Korea makes to the semifinals, they would call some 40,000 resident Koreans in Japan to Yoyogi Stadium to watch the match together.

Mainichi Daily's Kansai edition made the exceptional choice of running its headline in Korean, "100 million Japanese Support Korea," on Friday. The Chosun Ilbo Tokyo branch office received countless letters and phone calls from Japanese expressing their unanimous support. Yamaguchi of Tokyo said he supports Team Korea as much as he did the Japanese squad, and he is not the only one. Nagamachi from Kyoto sent a fax saying that this is the time that Japan must pray for Korea’s victory.

(Kwon Dae-yeol, dykwon@chosun.com )