Rommel the World Cup mascot
I must have missed this news the first time around, four years ago, but I was mildly [fill in the word] to read this Reuters news article online. News New TIME article by Jim Frederick in Tokyo explains it all.
It seems that since the 2002 World Cup the Japanese team has had an unofficial mascot, a real dog named Rommel (after the German field marshall of WWII fame, Erwin Rommel), and he is owned by chief press officer of the Japanese Soccer Association. Turns out the guy’s son named the dog after watching a movie about Rommel.
Little Rommel is in Germany for this month’s World Cup, but what was Japan thinking about when they named their mascot after Rommel: see blogger notes here?
UPDATE: Now, a few days later after initial post above, the Associated Press, which might have been reading over Japundit’s shoulders here on the Internet, chimes in with this article. And TIME dishes all.
One Japanese newspaper, the liberal left leanming Asahi, reports, like it is a joke:
Team Japan’s lucky charm, Rommel the miniature dachshund, arrived in Bonn on Wednesday, causing a stir among Japanese media hounds at the G-JAMPS (Germany Japan Media Partners Supporters) press and fan center.
According to Reuters, Japan is undefeated in 18 matches when “Ron,” the ever-present sidekick of head media officer Hideto Teshima, has been in attendance in the build-up to games.
The 10-year-old pooch became a celebrity darling during the 2002 World Cup in Japan-South Korea and his star is still shining judging by the amount of photographers that were snapping pictures of the peppy canine on Thursday.
Asked for a prediction for the highly anticipated Japan vs. Brazil clash on June 22, Rommel told this reporter: “Wan-wan (1-1).”
June 10th, 2006 at 9:35 pmQuote: “Rommel, you magnificent bastard. I read your book”
(General George S. Patton)
Study the enemy
June 11th, 2006 at 2:58 pmAnd yet those dancers took the non-Nazi swastika off their costumes out of sensitivity.:???:
http://japundit.com/archives/2006/05/25/2583/
I guess that’s the difference between Buddhism and atheletics.
June 11th, 2006 at 3:51 pmA Japanese friend in his 40s, in Osaka, wrote me today, re this issue: “About the dog’s name, I agree with you. But, I guess whoever named the dog Rommel didn’t know that it was the name of a Nazi’s high ranking official. And nobody seems to care, right? (Otherwise, German media would have said something).”
And another friend in Tokyo, a longtime expat, wrote and said “Japanese give their dogs all kinds of strange names, and many of them don’t make much sense in English…”
So maybe this is all a tempest in a dog dish!
June 11th, 2006 at 7:24 pmI have to agree that naming the dog Rommel probably wasn’t done in homage to the Nazi. But yeah, I must have missed the whole mascot thing during the last World Cup because this is the first I’m hearing about it.
June 11th, 2006 at 8:49 pmOther people have named their dog after Rommel.
I’m not an expert of WWII, but I’ve read elsewhere that Rommel wasn’t a Nazi Party member.
June 11th, 2006 at 9:22 pmrisingsun and blackbird, good points. and Wikiepedia notes:
Lord Montgomery even had a dog named after him.
So maybe this dog story does have legs, after all!!
My Japanese friend in Osaka notes in a second email:
June 11th, 2006 at 9:33 pm“Sports dailies and television networks in Japan have come to portray him as a symbol of invincibility or sorts. But I have no part in it,” said the ageing dog’s owner Hideto Teshima in Germany last week.
Maybe his invincibility is the key to the Rommel name then?
Meanwhile, some people are picking up on this story. This blogger, Jamie Trcker, who works for FOX NEWS, for example, notes: “You’ll be overjoyed to learn that Japan’s mascot…..is supposedly a good-luck charm (as we recall him, he was, well, a pain in the butt) and we gather coach Zico keeps a picture of him close to his heart. Hey, any port in a storm. And no, no-one else has pointed out how possibly tasteless it is to bring a dog named Rommel to the German World Cup.“.
Meanwhile, since Rommel was a desert fox, as the movie about him made clear, and since some people regard him in a positive light, the Agence France Press reporter Shigemi Sato notes today in an article from Germany online now that in tonight’s match, due to begin any minute now [results posted here later], “Japan are aiming to OUTFOX the bigger and more physical Australians in their opener today….” So maybe the dog’s name IS apt!
June 12th, 2006 at 2:02 pmANZACs pommel Rommel once more, history repeats itself.
Anyhoo, anybody who knows anything about Erwin Rommel would know he was not at all a negative character. I must say I always admired the guy, he’s probably just a step below WWI’s von Lettow-Vorbeck as far as greatest generals of all time go and just as honorable. Of course this won’t stop the scandal-mongers from blowing this thing ALL out of proportion.
June 13th, 2006 at 2:34 amWell, it was a good match, Japan had them beat all the way, after that first controversial goal, in which the Australian goalkeeper was sort of knocked down by an opposing player as the ball game in (and went past him) and then Japan led for most of the game. UNTIL: 3-1 Socceroos…
Oh well, there are more games coming, Japan.
TONY EASTLEY: “Australia’s goalkeeper, Mark Schwarzer, claims that after the game the Egyptian referee, Abdel Fatah, told him he’d been wrong to allow the controversial Japanese goal, however he added that God had been on Australia’s side.”
June 13th, 2006 at 10:54 amHmmm, actually Schwarzer said the referee told him god was on his — the ref’s — side because the Oz managed to win.
June 13th, 2006 at 1:12 pmUPDATE from Associated Press bureau in Germany, via Mainichi news link.
And a little humor from sportswriters Down Under: Aaron Timms and John Huxley
wrote:
DOGGONE IT
Spare a thought for Rommel, the dachshund of the Japanese team media boss. He has become a dressing-room mascot during their recent winning streak, but the deal was that as soon as the run stops the mutt loses his access-all-areas dog tag.
And Jules Quartly, writing in the Taipei Times, notes:
ROMMEL’S END
Finally, let’s hope we’ve heard the last about Rommel’s supposed invincibility. He didn’t hold the Allies and he failed to beat back the Aussies.
The oddly named dog who is Japan’s mascot (the “Blue Samurais” had never previously lost in 18 matches when the hound had attended training) is now expected to retire from the game. Woof.
June 13th, 2006 at 3:52 pmAnd finally, Jim Frederick of TIME magazine has said this: [link coming soon, it's on news.googe.com if you type in rommel japan]
Before the game, Japanese TV news segments on Rommel were virtually unending and his arrival at Frankfurt got almost as much play as the players’. Erwin Rommel, the dog’s namesake, was, of course, one of Nazi Germany’s most formidable generals. Known as the “Desert Fox” for his wily tank campaigns across Africa, he was one of the few top German commanders to win almost universal respect and admiration from his Allied opponents. But, of all the names in the world, it is still a bizarre choice, given all the weight of World War II history that bears down on the former Axis countries, for a Japanese person to choose for his dog. And yet, in all the media frenzy over Rommel, this one curiosity, the dog’s name, has gone completely unaddressed.
Michiko Toyama, a reporter in Time’s Tokyo bureau, called Teshima in Germany and asked him about the pooch’s loaded name. He said his son named the dog a decade ago after watching a movie about the general, but Teshima says he doesn’t have any more details about its provenance, saying that couldn’t remember, if he ever knew, the title of the film his son found so inspiring. (The best known Hollywood film about Rommel is The Desert Fox, made in 1951, starring James Mason in the title role. It presents Rommel as a tortured yet ultimately heroic soul, as one of the few senior Germans willing to turn against Hitler’s madness in the last throes of the war).
And yet, there is new beacon of possibility for the Samurai Blue. The latest Japanese news updates on Rommel have uncovered this shocking, disgraceful, but ultimately hopeful revelation: Rommel was, it seems, asleep for the second half of the disastrous big game. And thus, everyone has agreed on the only prescription possible for Sunday: Forced wakefulness for Rommel
June 14th, 2006 at 7:59 pmTime story here. Explains it all.
June 15th, 2006 at 1:11 pmIn the words of one my favourite authors:
Thomas Pynchon
“Every dog has his day, and a good dog just might have two days.”
-—Johnny Copeland. Epigraph to Vineland
(So Rommel keep wagging that “tale” boy!!!.):wink:
June 15th, 2006 at 1:27 pmI’m informed that he’s about to visit Graceland and afterward belt out a few numbers by the Big E.
Does this impact at all on the Yasukuni mondai??.
June 29th, 2006 at 12:06 pmKeio University must be a wonderful place to provide employment to mentally disadvantaged people such as Masaru-chan. A professorship even! By extension, they are providing Criss-Cross with regular scraps for the drooling anti-Japanese, ant-American bigots who frequent their comments section. Two birds with one stone!
Imagine the nerve of the Japanese to root for their home team. That clearly demonstrates Nationalistic tendencies.
And I must have missed Fox’s coverage of the war. Of course, I was in China, where foreign news networks are mostly banned by their wise and caring leaders. I also doubt that Masaru watched Fox. Easier just to repeat the propoganda than to actually watch and find himself questioning his cherished assumptions.
June 30th, 2006 at 8:04 amUnlike the blogs favored by the hordes of traditional media, which use content from paid staffers, The World Cup Blog uses volunteers to cover each country before, during and after the event.
“These are all fans … not journalists,” the editor Kellet said. “They are just people who love the team. Some are in the country, some are scattered around the world.”
It also offers written and photo essays on fans and the 12 host cities as well as biting commentary about everything from the bikinis worn by female spectators to the hairstyles sported by some players.
“The World Cup is such a fun event and there are so many odd stories. A dog named Rommel from Japan? You can’t beat that,” editor Kellett said.
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