Oliver, Benji and... Valeron?

看板Deportivo作者DiegoTristan (我...我討厭你們...)時間21年前 (2004/02/29 21:36)推噓0(0推 0噓 0→)

留言0則, 0人參與討論串1/2 (看更多)

The past days saw Shisei Uchida and Yoichi Takahashi, the Japanese creators of cartoon characters "Oliver & Benji", visiting La Coruna on the look out for inspiration for their drawings. Since the end of the 1980s football has become very popular in Japan with the introduction of the J-League and recently the hosting, together with South-Korea, of the World Cup 2002 tournament. This inspired the mentioned artists to come up with the characters of Oliver & Benji who experience adventures in the world of football. The past months, in fact years, have also seen a rising Japanese interest in Spanish football. And this has included Deportivo too. Of course, most attention has been attracted by Real Madrid as they travelled to Asia this summer to play several friendlies. But recently an official Japanese fanclub of Deportivo, JAPORUNA, was founded while the Japanese version of World Soccer published a big article of Deportivo. Also, the coaching methods of Irureta were studied intensively by the coaches of CF Tokio. At the end of the season Deportivo themselves will probably visit either the United States or Asia. But Uchida and Takahashi were looking for direct inspiration at Deportivo. Earlier this week they attended training sessions of the team at the Ciudad Deportiva in Abegondo after they had been at big clubs like AC Milan and FC Barcelona before. Takahashi commented that they prepare a second serie of "Oliver & Benji", as Oliver will play for FC Barcelona while Benji is at Hamburger SV. But it could well be that one of those characters ends up at Deportivo. On Wednesday they were impressed, but who was not, by the display of Valeron. The elegant midfielder of Deportivo attracted most attention despite the competition he faced of players like Del Piero and Nedved. Yoichi Takahashi commented that "Valeron has made the best impression upon us because he has a very clean style and his final phases are awesome. When we met him after the match we also were impressed by his voice, as he has a very particular one". Might this be a new career move for "El Flaco"? http://www.deportivo-la-coruna.com/pics/regular/Oliver_Benji.jpg