The FIFA World Cup is in full swing. While Nations like Egypt and Japan are making history, the spotlight is also falling on fans at the stadium cheering them wearing colourful jerseys. Those watching the spectacle from different parts of the world often get together wearing jersey copies and cheering for their favourite teams. With these jersey-copies easily available today the spotlight has shifted to a deeper understanding of the uniform, and as the days go by interesting anecdotes seem to emerge. If you may have noticed that most jerseys have colours of their respective Nation’s flag. But Japan is an exception, and in many ways.
Most of the participating teams in the FIFA World Cup have their team jerseys made in the colours of their National Flag or at least have one colour from the Flag prominently on the jersey. However, a closer look at Japanese jerseys would make you realise that while the Flag have white and red colours, the jersey has none. It is in fact, a blue colour jersey; a colour that is absent from the flag altogether.
Why does the Japan National team wear a blue jersey?
The answer to this question lies in an incident that took place in the 1930s. Back in the day, the then team had put on a blue jersey for the Far Eastern championship games. They had, in fact won the game. Since then, they continued wearing blue as a colour of luck rather than a colour which reflected the National Flag. Once around the late 1980s they did wear a red jersey but fared so poorly in the game that the colour went right back to blue or popularly called samurai blue.
Significance of the blue colour
Interestingly, the blue colour that you see on the Japanese National team jersey is not a very common one. It has a specific name and is known as Kachi iro. If you closely look at the colour it’s a shaded blue comprising dark blue and indigo in an ombre effect. Moreover, kachi , in Japanese means victory. So, the team literally wears victory! But rewind it to centuries ago, and you would find in art and cultural depictions how Japanese samurai’s wore the very same colour under their armour as a sign of good luck and victory wishes.
Thus, the Japanese jersey may not reflect the colours of its National Flag. But it reflects a thought so old through a colour so culturally relevant that one can safely say that Japan wears its beliefs on the field.
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