Samurai, showers and soap in Singapore
There are two major newspapers in Singapore.
In the morning it's The Straits Times, a very conservative publication, and in the evening it's The New Paper, which prefers sex and scandals.
Oh yes, and soccer.
On Monday, there were 18 pages of sport in the tabloid-size New Paper.
Eleven of them were about the English Premier League, including eight pages of reports, analysis, photographs and diagrams of the Arsenal-Manchester United match at Highbury.
That's right...eight on just one game!
There were three more on the Premier League, including a whole page on Bolton Wanderers' lucky, undeserved 1-0 victory over Newcastle United (oooohhh, it was painful writing that as a Newcastle fan. Personally, I thought this story was worth one sentence, not one page!).
There were five more pages on football (one each on Italy, Scotland and Singapore, and two on David Beckham/Spain).
So 16 of the 18 sports pages were on football. The other two were on horse racing.
The only reference to Wednesday's Singapore-Japan World Cup qualifier was a full-page advertisement by the host broadcaster, describing it as "The Lions versus The Samurai."
I asked a Singaporean journalist if the Lions could pounce on the Samurai and cause an upset.
"No chance-lah," he said (Singaporeans always end a sentence with "lah"). "With two slashes of the blade, the Samurai will win-lah."
On Monday morning I visited the match venue of Jalan Besar Stadium, which holds only 6,000 fans.
Due to a clash of dates, the 55,000-capacity National Stadium is not available, and this has led to a brisk sale of tickets on the internet.
There are seats down the two sides of the pitch only, with a wall behind both goals.
One of the walls separates the sandy pitch from the Jalan Besar swimming complex, so any wild shots on Wednesday night could be dangerous for the locals enjoying their evening swim.
Immediately behind the wall is the swimming pool shower complex, and goalkeepers in local league games have been known to have been affected by the strong smell of soap.
Who knows, maybe even the bubbles from the shower float over the wall and pop on the goalkeeper's nose?
Japan should win by three or four goals, but if Narazaki lets in a long shot because his eyes are full of soap suds, don't be surprised.
After all, this is the World Cup, and anything can happen.
Even to a Samurai.
ends
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