ケイ・ティエイ

Every Japan supporter should accept the possibility — the likelihood — that we won't see our team win a World Cup in our lifetimes.

[The line above was the tl;dr version; you can read the rest below]

Now: there's absolutely no doubt that Japanese soccer on the whole has made tremendous strides in just the last 30+ years. In the late 80s when I was born, the scene in Japan had yet to emerge from the proverbial ice age; it was only after the Agony of Doha in 1993 that Japan truly began to embrace the sport at the national level. We didn't earn our first World Cup berth until 1998 (in another playoff scenario), and didn't advance to the knockout stage for the first time until we co-hosted the Finals in 2002.

In those 30+ years, virtually every facet of Japanese soccer has gone from strength to strength. J League has developed into one of the best competitions in Asia, with multiple continental champions and multiple tiers featuring clubs from the entire length of Japan. There are young players emerging every year that are scouted and signed by clubs all over the world, including some "old-guard" European clubs with traditions of competing for domestic and international trophies.

In those 30+ years, a typical national team squad has shifted from being almost entirely made up of J League-based players to being very heavily overseas-based. And the tier of clubs that those squad members play for has also risen: whereas it was rare to see Japanese footballers in the Premier League, Bundesliga, or Serie A, as well as in the Champions League proper, now they feature regularly, and sometimes even prominently, in some of the biggest competitions in Europe.

And in those 30+ years, a legitimate soccer culture has started to emerge Japan aside from manga/anime and other "soft power" things (though they still drives much of its popularity, particularly outside of Japan). There's now an burgeoning generation, going on two generations, of fans who have grown up with the game, who don't know of a time when the game was an afterthought in Japanese society, and for whom their local club and/or the national team have become their true sporting love, and even travel great distances to follow their teams.

All of this is 100% true and undeniable. One could make the argument that no other country has ever been as successful in growing a sport from a starting point of virtually zero, in such a (relatively) short amount of time, as Japan has been with soccer… and everybody involved in that effort, no matter how big or small their involvements were, should forever be applauded for their part in it.

But all of that progress and all of that leveling up still cannot override this one basic reality: Japan, as a nation, has only been taking soccer seriously for 30+ years, in a world where the traditional powerhouse nations have had rock-solid, deeply-entrenched soccer cultures that date back over a century.

We've just now reached the point where the first generation of players and supporters who grew up with the game can pass their love and dedication down to their own children; our counterparts in countries like Brazil, Argentina, France, England, Spain, and so many others, had the passion for the game passed down to them by their parents… who, too, had the passion for the game passed down to them by their parents… and so it goes.

The truth is that Japan is still very much a "developing country" in terms of its soccer trajectory. Yes, that trajectory is still an upward one. But if there's one simple thing that this World Cup has proven for countries without much historical success, it's that there are just levels to all of this. And if our own defeat to Brazil — purportedly their "weakest" squad in many years — revealed anything, it's that we have much to learn and much to overcome before we can beat that version of Brazil, let alone the much stronger versions of them.

(And if we're talking strictly about our own World Cup results… listen, forget about winning the whole thing for a second. We've reached the knockout stage five times with four different managers, and we're still trying to figure out how to win one round from that phase of the tournament.)

It's also easy to point to the outwardly vast resources at Japan's disposal — the growing audience, the improving player pool, the money being poured into the game at all levels, or the sheer wealth of the nation itself, the kind of economic and financial might that allows major corporations to bankroll entire clubs — and consider the concept of ascending to the point of actually winning a World Cup not just as a dream or an aspiration, but even as a mandate.

The problem with this view is two-fold. One, it assumes that progress is linear and inevitable and never-ending — none of which has been true even as it related to Japan's own building process since the 1990s. And two, it also assumes that other nations, including the aforementioned powerhouses, aren't also leveling up at the same time, often to an even greater degree than Japan and other "developing" footballing nations.

On the second point: just take a look at Spain. It's home to two of the most iconic, most decorated clubs in the game. It has spent decades developing and unleashing some of the greatest talents in the history of the sport. Even with that backdrop, its national team also didn't win its first World Cup until 2010… and in large part, it took the long, pain-staking development of a distinct playing style that only Spain could replicate, and a set of players who could actually pull it off, for that triumph (and the one today) to happen.

All of which is to say: we're some 30-odd years into trying to build something that took a longstanding footballing nation like Spain more than 80 years to fully build out. As much as we celebrated our own win against them in Qatar four years ago, even that has to be acknowledged as a "one out of a 100" type scenario.

The realty is that money can buy better facilities for youth development, fancier venues that can generate more revenue for the clubs and the FA, sponsorship deals that can fund entire programs from the grassroots on up, and occasionally, a manager who has seen up close what the very top level of the game looks like. What it can't buy is an entire century's worth of history, culture, traditions, identity, experience, passion, and devotion.

Of course, none of this necessarily means that there is zero possibility of Japan one day winning the World Cup, and that everyone should just give up the dream. As long as there's a ball and a pitch and eleven players lined up against each other somewhere in the world, we are all free to dream of a world where Japan is mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Brazil, Argentina, Germany, and France when it comes to the overall soccer hierarchy.

(And while this happened in a wildly different, entirely unique context, our women's team's own, actual, factual World Cup triumph in 2011 could offer some measure of a championship blueprint for the men's team to follow.)

I can totally understand why that dream still exists, and will continue to exist, for so many people inside and outside of Japan; after all, the word "fan" itself is short for "fanatic." But every now and then, the head has to step in where the heart doesn't want to intervene. In this case, there's room for us to both hold onto the dream and to also recalibrate our expectations for this team. Doing so wouldn't mean that we now love the team any less or that we're any less loyal to them; it just means we'll find it easier to level with the losses when they come.

There will be many more gut-wrenching defeats for Japan in future World Cups. Hell, we'll even experience our share of those in the Asian Cups that we don't win (we're already working on a mini-drought there post-2011). As the expectations continue to rise, so could the resentments that follow the inevitable heartbreaks. And as those heartbreaks continue to pile up, not everyone will be able to hold onto those dreams. But if what they say about individuals and organizations learning more from defeats than from victories is true, then the lessons taken from those moments might someday result in a breakthrough.

It just might not be in this lifetime. And we all might have to learn to be okay with that possibility.