Recent sporting events

In October, there were some interesting soccer matches involving the Japan national team. When they had finished, I was a little sad, because I thought that there wouldn't be anything interesting in sports until the Asian Cup began next January. However, there have been lots of interesting events since then.

First of all, there's the world ladies' volleyball competition happening right now. I don't know volleyball so well, so I'm not too familiar with the setup, but it appears that the world's teams are divided into 4 groups, and each team has to play every other team in its group. That means there are a lot of matches, and the Japan team seems to be playing nearly every day. I don't have time to watch all the matches, but I've seen a few. I saw Japan lose to China the day before yesterday, and then beat Turkey yesterday. My impression of the Japan team was that their attack is a bit predictable, but Ebata's attacking shots are so good that they were able to beat Turkey. Also, I felt that Japan's defence was rather weak, until they brought on their libero (I don't remember her name).*

*I'm told her name is Sano.