The Tide Recedes in Rostov: Japan, Belgium, and Nine Seconds of a Generation

At Rostov-on-Don, on the night of July 2, 2026, I sat in the eleventh row, behind the goal guarded by Thibaut Courtois. To my left sat a Japanese man clutching a red scarf, and he had been crying since the 52nd minute. Not from pain. He was crying because Takashi Inui had just driven the ball into Belgium's net from outside the box, sending Japan 2-0 ahead against one of the most feared teams in the tournament. He took my hand and said something in Japanese that I needed an interpreter to grasp in full: "We are about to make history." I nodded, but inside I could already hear the waves. I grew up on the eastern coast of Korea, and I know something that perhaps only those who live beside the sea know: when the tide is at its highest, that is precisely the moment it begins to recede.

To understand that night, you have to place it exactly where it belongs. Japan arrived in Russia without much expectation. They were drawn in Group H alongside Colombia, Senegal and Poland, and they advanced on fair-play points — a passage that even the Japanese themselves regarded as partly fortunate. Belgium were the opposite: a golden generation with Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku, fresh from winning all three group games with nine goals. Nobody imagined this match would last until the fourth minute of stoppage time. And nobody imagined that, after that night, people would have to recall a record that had slept for more than half a century: the last time a team came back from two goals down to win a World Cup knockout match was 2026, when Portugal beat North Korea 5-3 after trailing 0-3. Belgium in 2026 repeated it. That fact sits in FIFA's chronicles, and it tells us that Rostov was no small accident.

Tactically, this was a clash of two opposite philosophies. Roberto Martinez's Belgium lined up with a back three — Toby Alderweireld, Thomas Vermaelen, Jan Vertonghen — and a creative midfield. Their idea was to control the ball, stretch the opponent with long diagonal passes, and finish with Lukaku's speed. Akira Nishino's Japan chose the opposite road: a high press, winning the ball in the opponent's half, and switching play at speed. They accepted surrendering possession in exchange for moments. It was a gamble, and for the first fifty minutes, the gamble won.

Japan's two goals were two cuts from the same blade. On 48 minutes, Genki Haraguchi ran through after a threaded pass and finished across goal. On 52 minutes, Inui received the ball at the edge of the box, took one touch and curled it into the far corner. Both goals came from the same pattern: Japan won the ball in midfield just as Belgium lost it, then played a pass straight into the space behind the back three. Belgium's back three had a built-in weakness — when the wing-backs pushed high to support the attack, only two centre-backs stayed home, and the flanks became vast. Japan read it. I watched the footage four times, and on both goals I saw the same detail: a Japanese midfielder standing still at the edge of the centre circle, waiting for the exact instant De Bruyne or Axel Witsel lost the ball.

But there is something collective memory tends to skip. Inui's second goal came from pressure that had been calculated in advance, not from luck. For about twenty minutes at the start of the second half, Japan pressed with an intensity rarely seen. I counted: there were moves where three men in blue rushed a single Belgian, denying him a second to lift his head. That is the football of lungs, and lungs always have a limit.

The limit arrived on 69 minutes. Jan Vertonghen, a centre-back, headed in from a corner to make it 2-1. On 74 minutes, Marouane Fellaini — a substitute — headed in from another corner to level at 2-2. Two goals, two corners, two heads. Belgium did not equalise with the beautiful football they are praised for; they equalised by throwing the ball into the box and letting tall heads do the rest. Fellaini stands 1.94 metres. Lukaku stands 1.91. Japan's tallest centre-back is only about 1.83. The gap was physical, and no tactics notebook erases it.

I have followed Asian football for forty-nine years, and I have learned one thing: Asians do not lack technique, and we do not lack will. We lack centimetres. In a match where everything else is level, centimetres become destiny. Japan played better than Belgium for the first seventy minutes — better in organisation, in intensity, in courage. But football does not award points for seventy minutes. It awards points for ninety minutes plus stoppage time.

This is where I must tell another, smaller story, one that happened a year earlier. On April 15, 2026, at Yanmar Nagai Stadium in Osaka, I watched Cerezo Osaka host Kashiwa Reysol. Midfielder Hiroaki Okuno, wearing number 10, mis-hit a volley on 52 minutes and was jeered by the stands. On 83 minutes, the same man, from outside the box, struck a volley that hit the underside of the crossbar and bounced in. I did not write about the goal. I wrote about his boots — the stray boots left on the turf after the mis-hit, like a confession. Because football, to me, has never been the scoreline. It is what remains after the scoreline has been written.

The ball rolls through my years, and I copy it down in verse. In Rostov, what remains after that 3-2 is the image of Japan pushing everyone forward for a corner in the 90+4th minute. They needed a goal, and they accepted the risk. Courtois caught the ball, threw it quickly to De Bruyne; De Bruyne carried it past the halfway line and passed to Thomas Meunier; Meunier squared it to Lukaku — and Lukaku, with cold intelligence, let the ball run between his legs, not touching it, releasing it for Nacer Chadli charging up the left. Nine seconds. From Japan's corner to Japan's net took nine seconds. Football sometimes needs no extra time at all to tell a whole tragedy.

And this is where our collective memory makes its mistake. After that night, almost every commentary blamed the 90+4th-minute corner. People said Japan were naive, foolish, that they should have kept the ball and gone to extra time. I have heard that line hundreds of times. But I want to reframe it: if Japan had chosen extra time with a squad that had pressed madly for ninety minutes, what were their chances? The tide had already receded at the 69th minute. That team no longer had the legs to run another thirty minutes against Lukaku and Fellaini.

The blind spot is at the 52nd minute, not the 90+4th. The moment Japan went 2-0 was also the moment they had spent all the physical capital they owned. A smaller team, weaker in physique, can only beat a big team by playing above its own ceiling for a limited window — and that ceiling cannot hold for a whole match. Japan's death in Rostov was the bill for ninety minutes lived above their own average. People call it tragedy. I call it the fate of those who dare.

That night on Russian soil, I understood that the tide recedes only to return a sorrow. And I understood one more thing that few care to admit: Belgium did not win with their identity. They won by abandoning it. For seventy minutes, Belgium tried to play their elegant possession football and were read by Japan. When they grew desperate, they threw the philosophy away, put the ball in the air, and let the heads work. So the real question of Rostov should be: what did Belgium learn from Japan? They learned that sometimes, to survive, a big team must know how to play like a small one — to feel pain, to endure, and to seize the moment.

Eight years have passed since that night. I still keep the match ticket in a notebook, and every season that goes by, I open it again. The applause in an empty stadium, I hear it more clearly than the waves. Perhaps the definition of victory does not lie in the scoreline, but in how far a team dares to push its boat from the shore before the tide turns. Japan lost that night. But if there is one thing I want to leave for the generation of players growing up in the J-League today, it is this question: would you dare to go 2-0 up against Belgium, knowing that the 90+4th minute waits for you at the end of the road? Football does not reward the safe. It rewards only those who dare to live above their own ceiling.