England beat Japan in The Alps
Sunday May 30, 2010 - Email this article to a friend

The pre-World Cup match on Sunday was a bit of a messy affair.

Partly because of the pouring rain in Graz, Austria, and also because the manager was trying out players and experimenting.

England won 2 -1 but both were own goals courtesy of the Japanese.

The Japanese have been based in Saas-Fee ahead of The World Cup.

The high-altitude Swiss ski resort went to some effort to get the team and its accompanying entourage.

5 other Swiss resorts were reportedly battling for them but Saas-Fee came out on top.

Japan is an important market for the Swiss and the resorts see it as an invaluable publicity opportunity.

The team, and its travelling entourage of around 50, arrived last Wednesday and has been training on the sports pitches at the base of the ski area.

Going through their paces....

....at 1,850m.

The first training session was open for people to watch but now they are closed to the public.

The media are though allowed in for the last 15 minutes.

The Japanese team received quite a welcome as it arrived with local school children out to cheer and wave a few flags.

110 local children turned out

The Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland, Ichiro Komatsu, also made the journey from the Swiss capital, Bern, to welcome the team.  The mayor of Saas-Fee gave the official welcome.

"GANBARE NIPPON!" (Do your best Japan!) was the chant that echoed round the village as the team arrived.

Ganbare Nippon!

They arrived with 5 tons of luggage between them and were given special dispensation to take it to the hotel in the bus rather than off load it all into the electric vehicles that buzz around town. They would have needed quite a few.

Saas-Fee is a car free resort and the internal combustion engine is banned. 

Except it seems for special occasions.

The team though was taken in a special electric train.

The team bus

The Japanese team have returned to Saas Fee for further altitude training. They leave on June 5^th and have a match against the Ivory Coast in Sion on June 4^th.

The match in Graz, at the UPC Arena, attracted a deal of media attention.

"22 camera teams alone will report from the match, no comparable event has ever happened at the UPC Arena ever before," said one of the organisers of the match, Martin Walazadeh to The Austrian Times last week.

For a look at why the ski resorts across the Alps have made such an effort to host the World Cup football teams see this related PlanetSKI story.

Around 20 are currently in The Alps. 32 teams are taking part in the finals in South Africa that start on June 11th.

We have also reported on England who are in the tiny Austrian ski resort of Irdning.

The pictures of the Japanese team were taken by the photographer, Thomas Andenmatten.

Saas-Fee is a particular favourite of us here at PlanetSKI; take a look at the video below if you want to see why.

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