0		Korean, and, Japanese, Reporters, Watch, WBC

"Japanese people don't look at Korea as a pushover. They know Korea is a strong team."

During the national team's training for the WBC at Central Oahu Regional Park in Hawaii on the 24th (Korean time), I met a Japanese person. He is Muroi Masaya, a Sports Chosun columnist who writes a Japanese-language guide to Korean pro baseball. With the athletes in full swing as they get ready, we sat together and talked about the different Korean and Japanese perspectives on the WBC.

Reporter: What do you think of the Korean national team?

Muroi: I think the atmosphere around camp is really great. The Japanese team seems to be tense with the expectation to win again.

Reporter: The atmosphere seems to be that they expect to beat Korea.

Muroi: The players expect to win, of course. But most Japanese people don't feel the same way. Obviously Japan has a lot of major league athletes. But for the Japanese they are looking at more as Korea being strong than expecting Japan to win easily.

Reporter: If you watch the Japanese media, they're treating the WBC pretty heavily. In Korea it doesn't seem so big.

Muroi: Last time 40,000 fans came to the camp in Miyazaki. Even ordinary Japanese people know who Kim Kwang-hyeon and Lee Dae-ho are.

Reporter: The current team has lost Matsunaka, Wada, and Kishi, who were all strong against Korea.

Muroi: The loss of Wada was because manager Hara thought Utsumi was an even better choice. Matsunaka has a bad Achilles tendon, but I'm hearing that's not why he was left off. Kishi didn't appear ready for the WBC.

Reporter: What issues do you think the Korean team has?

Muroi: Jin Gap-yong was captain at the Beijing Olympics. Unlike then, right now they don't have any veterans to hold the team together.

Reporter: Ok, so how about the Japanese team's issues?

Muroi: The Japanese team is always split up into cliques. With so many athletes produced by the high schools, they usually don't know one another, which is different from the Koreans. They go into professional baseball and don't know anyone from the other teams. So when the national team is put together there are always these cliques. And that was true in the Beijing Olympics. Now Ichiro is the glue, but I don't know how that's going to work out. And it's worrisome that they don't have a true left fielder.

Reporter: It seems Matsunaka will be the key player against Korea.

Muroi: It's tough to give an accurate answer to that, too. There are hopes that Darvish rather than Matsunaka will be the closer.

Reporter: Korean manager Kim In-shik emphasizes patriotism to his players. He tells them to be proud of the taeguk mark. And the players feel the same. I've heard Japan, too, is preparing for the tournament by emphasizing national honor.

Muroi: Patriotism. Actually, in Japan there is no patriotism education. Patriotism was emphasized before the war, but after the war people stopped used patriotic words. I guess that's the difference. Anyway, Japanese players are playing not for Japan but for Japanese baseball.

Reporter: Wrapping up, how much success do you think Korea and Japan will have? Korea's goal is to make the final four.

Muroi: For Korea the first goal is to get out of the first round. Since Japan won the first tournament their goal is to win again, but they aren't saying so publicly. They're being very careful. In any case, I hope both teams have great success.