Promising

No regrets whatsoever for Korea following its most predictable defeat to uber favorite Brazil in the round of 16: the team held their ground with a very decent possession time and spectacular opportunities, even during that merciless jogo bonito / realism lesson of the first half, and made almost the best of their World Cup.

After an uninspiring draw against a very weak Uruguay, the Taeguk Warriors lost what was supposed to be their easiest game (allowing far too many goals from Ghana) before slaying Portugal's B team at the buzzer. If they came back twice from behind to survive their first round, they didn't collapse following Neymar Jr and friends' festival, which no team could have recovered from anyway.

Except for the first game, Paolo Bento's side built its opportunities and goals in a much more diverse and entertaining (not to mention less controversial) way than Guus Hiddink's commando*. For the first time in the ten World Cups I've been following Korea, I saw more style and confidence than resilience, the promises of an ambitious, sustainable playing identity. And I loved the way Bento, even as he knew he wouldn't stay, provided priceless experience to young talents in the second half. PAIK Seung-ho's awesome goal crowned perfectly Korea's 2022 World Cup, and if SON Heung-min may not join the party in 2026, KIM Kang-in,  HWANG Hee-chan, CHO Gyu-sung, and others already proved they could be leaders on the pitch.

Yes, this World Cup remains a total nonsense, an insult to sports, environment, human rights, you name it. And like every World Cup, this one remains opium for the people. But Korea badly needed this chase of the 2002 dragon right now. And it felt good to see its struggling youth party joyfully outdoor just weeks after the abominable tragedy in Itaewon.

"A SuperSonnyc #SonHeungmin (a #BBC meme)" (@theSeoulVillage - https://twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/1598992987618684928)

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* which I absolutely adored, don't get me wrong!

One last gold medal for Korea (the usual one)

Korean broadcasters perfectly wrapped up their coverage of the Rio Olympics by masking the parade of world athletes with the portraits of national competitors they already aired 99% of the time during the whole competition - I actually switched from MBC to SBS because there, that patriotic display filled less than half the screen:

Even when other nations are on screen at Rio 2016, Korea broadcasters manage to show national athletes (20160822 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/767507917016698881)

So once again, Korea claimed the gold medal for national chauvinism on TV, a domain where the country faces much tougher and diverse competition than in archery.

In case you missed the Rio games and the previous editions, here's how it works: 

• all major broadcasters sharing the same rights for the games, the competition among them is all about populism and fueling national fervor
• if a national champion is competing, major broadcasters must also air them live on their dedicated sports channel (and when it's PARK In-bee, throw in that dedicated golf channel for good measure) - when that's a second rate athlete, use the sport channel to rerun the exploits of top tier stars.
• on the last day, when there's 0% chance of medal, start one hour later and replay past medal bouts
• otherwise, may be aired live only universal legends in the very exclusive Usain BOLT - Michael PHELPS league (two more games required for Simone BILES, and Team USA B stood no chance with none of that 1992-dream-team material) - these legends are part of the comfort zone, their presence providing both the 'international' label, and the 'sport domination' alibi
• success basically always relies on the same sports - difficult to grow new vocations without 'training' the audience with a decent pedagogy of Olympic diversity...

Baseball returns to the Olympics for Tokyo 2020, and you don't know what may happen if Korea faces Japan in the finals.

Aaah, Tokyo 2020! Different flavor of ultranationalism there. Today, the Olympic flag was handed to Nippon Kaigi darlings Yuriko Koike (the newly elected governor), and Shinzo Abe, who popped up dressed as Super Mario:

Inspired by Queen Elizabeth II's cameo appearance for London 2012, Shinzo Abe showed up as Super Mario. A weird solo performance (lacking the humor and Bond sidekick), particularly from an elected politician less iconic than British royalty... Imagine Erdogan doing the same for Istanbul 2020. If Abe's less into personal ego than into the revival of the fascist regime, he never misses an opportunity to show his face on an international stage (e.g. featured at the end of each ad of the Japan government's ongoing PR campaign on CNN)

Super Tojo ready for Tojo 2020 - let the Nippon Kaigi games begin!

BREAKING - Shinzo Abe unveils new logo for Tokyo 2020 (Hideki Tojo 2020) (20150911 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/642228805260570624)

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