Why This Topic Landed in Japan

Japan-Korea football is freighted with decades of rivalry, and Korean reactions that turn blame outward tend to be consumed in Japan as confirmation of a familiar stereotype. This time the trigger was concrete: after a group-stage exit, the returning squad was met at Incheon airport by fans hurling abuse at coach Hong Myung-bo, with the federation reportedly canceling welcome and disbandment ceremonies and deploying heavy security. Behind the scenes sat a messier story — a police probe into the federation and a head of state weighing in — which let Japanese netizens frame the scene as a window onto Korean "national character," even as some turned the mirror on Japan's own fans.

Key Reaction Themes

  • "Business as usual" — Cold detachment at the airport jeers, widely dismissed as a familiar Korean spectacle rather than a shock.
  • A probe and a president piling on — Interest in the institutional mess behind the anger: a long-stalled police investigation into the coaching appointment and the political fallout swirling around the federation.
  • The mirror turned on Japan — A sharper, self-aware strand where a Korean's jab that Japanese online nationalists resemble Korean fans drew uneasy agreement, with reminders that Japan once scapegoated its own returning players too.

What Japanese Netizens Are Saying

Coach Hong met with jeers at the airport

Reactions to fans shouting abuse at the returning squad and coach Hong Myung-bo at Incheon airport.

Sources: Yahoo! news, AFP BB News, 2ch

Comments:

  • "This is the normal state of things for them."
  • "National character."
  • "Carry on like this and nobody will coach Korea. Between the media and the fans, Korea is already done for."
  • "Why is Korea's national character like this? Is it really something to bash this hard over... I can't understand it."
  • "Can't they even say 'thanks for your efforts'?"
  • "'Dead'? They were never a powerhouse to begin with."
  • "There's a video going around of this coach verbally abusing his players, you know."
  • "On the other hand, the players who arrived afterward were welcomed with applause, with some fans calling out 'thank you so much for your hard work.'"
  • "You're the ones who called them a golden generation, so he confidently dropped Son Heung-min. Cutting a past-his-peak veteran shouldn't shake a 'golden generation,' right?"

A federation probe and a president piling on

Reactions to the police investigation into the coaching appointment and the political fallout engulfing the federation.

Sources: Yahoo! news, 2ch

Comments:

  • "Is Hong getting actual jail time?"
  • "The investigation is into the federation, not the coach."
  • "It's a country where the president gets arrested every single time."
  • "It's a national temperament where they can't rest until someone's been arrested."
  • "First they need to push forward the probe into the mess around the appointment — apparently it hasn't moved in two years."
  • "There are even calls to arrest the top brass of the Korean football federation — that country is off."
  • "The masses cursing out the people responsible, I get — that's how it goes. But the president doing it is way too much."
  • "Crashing out of a super-soft group that was 95% predicted to go through — Korean football's level has simply dropped."

The mirror turned on Japan: "netizens and Koreans are alike"

Reactions to a Korean commenter's jab that Japan's online nationalists resemble Korean fans, prompting some self-aware agreement.

Sources: 2ch

Comments:

  • "So mocking netouyo means mocking Koreans too, then."
  • "The only trash getting angry at this is the netouyo. This Korean person is properly saying 'most Japanese people are decent!'"
  • "So netouyo are close to Koreans, then."
  • "People have long pointed out that netouyo and Koreans are very alike. It's funny that thanks to translation tools, the locals over there are now saying it too."
  • "It's what they call self-loathing."
  • "The moment you're clinging to patriotism or nationality at all, you're finished as a person."
  • "No, fans of any country react like this when they fail to qualify. The president dissing them is just a Korea thing."
  • "They've completely forgotten that Japan, too, hunted for 'war criminals,' strung them up, and threw water on the players when they came home."
  • "Even the Hachima crowd here was much the same, though."
  • "Japan had times like that too, long ago. Sports are something you should just enjoy casually."