Ann Killion’s postcard
Olympic soccer means traveling to distant destinations, but suffice to say I never expected to see Kashima, Japan.
KASHIMA, Japan — The Olympic soccer tournament typically is like a sprinkling of extra gifts to the country involved. Though the host for the Olympic Games is always a city, Tokyo in this case, the soccer tournament is spread around the land as though Oprah is in charge.
“Here’s a group game for you! And one for you! And you get a quarterfinal!”
I’ve been to some really cool places thanks to Olympic soccer. I went to Melbourne, Australia. To the isle of Crete. To Glasgow and Newcastle and to the sacred soccer ground of Old Trafford in Manchester.
Kashima, however, where I was for the U.S. Women’s national team’s semifinal, does not crack my list of top coolest Olympic soccer venues.
Through no fault of its own. It’s just that it is a small industrial (steel and petrochemical) city of 67,000 that isn’t exactly a tourist destination. However, it happens to have a really big soccer stadium. That’s the reason Olympic soccer is spread out — it needs big stadiums. Or it did until the Pandemic Olympics, which have no fans.
Kashima was the site of some groupplay games in the 2002 World Cup: Germany’s Miroslav Klose scored a goal there and it’s the site of where Croatia upset Italy. And those 42,000 available seats seemed important when the Olympics were awarded to Tokyo.
Now, however, a twohour bus ride from Tokyo to a stadium with no fans seems silly.
They really could have played these soccer games at a high school in Tokyo.
Still, Kashima is proud. It has a cool stadium that’s home to the Antlers, the most successful Japanese professional team. It has one of the oldest Shinto shrines in Japan.
When media members who make the trek here check into the venue, we are presented with a gift bag. It reminded me of the regional gifts and food that each stop of the Tour de France offers reporters, a publicity campaign for the region.
Included in our Kashima gift bag were chopsticks and chopstick rests “using Japanese paper — please take it home in memory of your visit to Kashima City.” And two different sets of postcards in envelopes with the inscription “The charm of Kashima City that I want to convey.”
We also got a beautiful fan. I’m keeping all the gifts, but the only one I broke out Monday was the fan, because the heat and humidity in seaside Kashima were unbelievably sweltering.
Sure, it might not be Crete or Old Trafford. But arigato, Kashima.