Two weeks ago I found myself in a situation that I had since coming to Japan begun to accept and become accustomed to. The second leg of the Champions League last sixteen was coming up and there was no way I was going to miss the clash between Sir Alex and ‘The Special One’. I was also eager to see my fellow national Ibrahimovic in action in Europe where he continuously fails to dazzle as is expected of him. The dilemma I was yet again faced with was whether or not to, due to the time difference, get up at 04:45 and watch the game live or wait until the following day and watch the re-run somewhere and hope to avoid all forms of information that could potentially give away the result. The obvious problem with the first option is the time of day, but the second problem is that unless you have cable TV, which I do not, you have to go to a bar and watch the game or stream it online.
A friend of mine was returning to Europe that same week and decided to have his sayonara party Wednesday evening and thus I opted to wait until Thursday evening and watch the re-run at a bar, hopefully along with my brother. The party took a very late turn and after several bar visits it was finally time to stagger home. Along the way I came across a small Italian bar called ‘Scudetto’ – the Italian domestic football league – with its lights on. For the first time in my life I walked into a Japanese establishment without being met by a wave of “irashaimase”. Instead the bar tender and a lonely customer just looked at me in slight awe. The lonely customer squinted at me with his cigarette dangling from his mouth. “Inter?” he grunted at me without removing his cigarette. “Manchester” I replied shaking my head. After a few seconds he finally chuckled and returned to the match while the bartender motioned me to take a seat and have a drink.
United won the game and Inter were knocked out of the competition. The lonely customer and I enjoyed a good game discussing footie, Ibrahimovic and more. The bartender was named Takeshi and had been an Italian fan since he was small and dreamt of retiring there someday. He told me that his tiny bar was pretty much all he had but unfortunately it did not pull in a lot of money. Like so many other micro cafes, bars and record stores in Tokyo, ‘Scudetto’ was an idealistic middle-classed Japanese man’s own haven, his answer to a compulsive obsession with Italy. ‘Scudetto’ was a personal find and I have returned on weekends to watch some good Italian football but also, and perhaps more importantly, to support and show my appreciation that Takeshi held on to his obsession.
